


Harry Potter and The Death Eater Menace

by TheSinister_Man



Series: The Prince of Slytherin [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animagus, Azkaban, Duelling, Gen, Independent Harry Potter, Legilimency, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Metamorphmagus, Occlumency, Parseltongue, Powerful Harry Potter, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Sirius Black Free from Azkaban, Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter), Worldbuilding, Wrong Boy-Who-Lived (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-07-04 04:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 276,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15833898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSinister_Man/pseuds/TheSinister_Man
Summary: Azkaban has been broken into and the supposed 'right hand' of the Dark Lord; Sirius Black is now at large. With the Wizarding World plunged into a frenzy of fear, Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry shall play host to the Dementors of Azkaban.





	1. Prelude (Theodore Nott)

**HARRY POTTER  
AND THE DEATH EATER MENACE**

* * *

**Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.**

* * *

**CHAPTER 1: Theodore Nott and the House of Seven Gargoyles**

**19 June 1993 at 5:00 pm**  
Nott Manor  
Nottinghamshire, UK

A soft pop accompanied the arrival of Theo and his father at the family's ancestral manse. Lord Nott strode brusquely towards the manor house, but Theo paused and looked up towards the foreboding building. He had lived here continuously from the day he came home from St. Mungo's as a baby until the day he left for Hogwarts on September 1st of 1991, save for a few rare social functions. Indeed, had there not been an unusual number of children his age born into families politically allied with his own and with whom he was expected to hobnob, Theo might never have seen another child before getting on the Hogwarts Express. But he had been gone for almost two years, and Nott Hall seemed different. It was certainly as dreary as he'd remembered, but Theo now had the oddest feeling that it had ...  _shrunk_  somehow. Shrunk and become less imposing than it had been on the day he left for Hogwarts.

The  _gargoyles_ , however, were every bit as big and fearsome as he'd recalled. There were seven of the beastly things arranged at odd intervals around the house. Theo had seen gargoyles in books and knew what ordinary gargoyles looked like on Muggle structures. He'd actually been surprised to learn that they were usually mere functional ornaments – water spouts designed to funnel rain off of the roofs of medieval buildings and which had been decorated to look like deformed people or animals for aesthetic reasons. The gargoyles of Nott Manor, however, were statues with no functional purpose.

Well, no  _obvious_  functional purpose. Before she died, Theo's mother had warned the young child repeatedly never to play outside of the house without either her or Alex or one of the kinder house elves as chaperones or else " _the gargoyles might get you_." After she'd died and he'd gotten older, Theo eventually decided that there was nothing dangerous about the stone statues and that his mother wished him to stay in the house at all times for some other disturbing reason most likely related to his father. But Theo had become a wizard since leaving Nott Hall albeit only a young one, and his studies both at Hogwarts and under the brief tutelage of Lucius Malfoy had taught him to reexamine his childish assumptions.

The gargoyles were all identical. Each was a short but stocky four-legged beast that looked vaguely like a cross between a lion and a small bull with thick barrel chests and crooked horns extending out of a rough mane. He studied them now with senses that he'd not possessed when he left for Hogwarts and which he had only begun to refine. And those senses told him now that his earlier childish fears had been correct. There was magic in the seven gargoyles. Magic and hunger and also an inexplicable yet terrible rage that was only restrained by their stony natures.

"Theodore!" Lord Nott called out over his shoulder. "Don't dawdle. We have much to talk about."

Theo's head snapped towards his father in surprise, but the man had already turned back around and headed on towards the house. He honestly couldn't remember the last time his father had used his actual first name. Usually, it was "brat" or "little bastard" if not something worse. Theo picked up his trunk and followed after the older man, now studiously avoiding the gaze of the seven gargoyles ... if not their attentions.

Once the two were inside, Tiberius called for a house elf. "Rogo! See to young Master Theodore's trunk. He and I have matters to discuss in my study. Send refreshment when you are done."

The hunchbacked house elf bowed deeply and then silently limped over to Theo's trunk. The boy recalled that Rogo had once accidentally spilled coffee on Lord Nott's trousers during breakfast about five or six years before. The next day Rogo had a limp that hadn't healed in all the years since, and he rarely spoke again except when ordered to. But he'd also gotten a lot more attentive when serving hot beverages, so Theo imagined that his father thought it a fair exchange. There was a soft pop and both Rogo and the trunk were gone.

"Come along now, son," said Nott almost pleasantly as he strode towards his private study. After a moment's hesitation, Theo followed. Soon, they were situated in the Lord's study next to a roaring fire. At first, Theo (who had never been in this room before in his entire life) wondered why his father would have a fire blazing in his study on a hot June day, but as he came nearer, he realized that the flames were cobalt blue and that they seemed to emit coldness rather than heat. That explained why the room was cool, bordering on chilly. Or perhaps that last bit was the result of Theo's nerves. As he sat, Theo reinforced his Occlumency shields for perhaps the tenth time since first spotting his father at King's Cross Station. Though he felt confident that any Legilimens who casually reached into his mind would find only the dutiful thoughts of an obedient son, part of him still feared that he would never be able to fool his father with such lies.

Or that his father would think kindly of him even if he believed the lies were true.

"Shall we take tea, Theodore?" Tiberius asked with unnatural politeness. "It is, after all, the British Muggle's one indisputable contribution to proper society."

"Yes, please," Theo replied calmly. Tiberius said nothing else as he poured two cups for himself and his youngest boy. He did crook an eyebrow when Theo politely declined milk, sugar, and lemon all.

" _Well,_ _Dad_ _,_ " Theo thought to himself. " _I don't know how_ _you_ _drink it, so I have no way of knowing where the poison is, now do I?_ "

Tiberius handed the cup over to his son, and the two drank in silence for a few moments until the older man spoke again. Relative silence, anyway – Lord Nott had a habit of slurping his tea.

"Now then, Theodore. It's been a long time since we've talked like this ... father-to-son. Tell me, how have things been at Hogwarts?"

"Oh, you know. The usual." Theo took a long sip of tea. "I was petrified by a basilisk, but I got better in no time. Other than that, it's been rather boring. Just studying and tests."

"But still leaving time for physical activity, I see," Tiberius said, completely ignoring the shocking news about his son encountering a basilisk. "Why I think you've grown at least half a foot since last I saw you!"

" _Yeah, that happens to growing boys over the course of_ _two years_ _, Dad,"_ Theo thought to himself while maintaining his outer shell of total placidity. "Our most recent DADA instructor, the one apparently responsible for all the petrifications, believed in physical fitness. Every weekday morning, most of the students had to rise at dawn for a regimen of exercise. Calisthenics. Running. Basic hand-to-hand combat. Even an obstacle course."

Tiberius nodded. "Your brother Alexander tells me that they have similar programs at Durmstrang. Personally, I've never seen the need for such nonsense. We are wizards. We have wands. Whatever sort of danger would we ever face that would call for Muggle brutishness in place of our magical birthright?"

" _Uh-huh. I wonder if that attitude has anything to do with how you've gained at least two stone since the last time I saw you. You never could resist a second helping of dessert._ " Theo shrugged. "Lockhart wanted it. The Headmaster approved it. None of the students had any say in the matter. I suppose it could have been worse." He paused. "By the way, where is Alex? Shouldn't he be back from Durmstrang by now?"

"Alas, he was delayed by school business and took a later train. It seems your brother Alexander has been selected as one of the Durmstrang Sixth Year prefects and was required to stay behind for an orientation meeting. He is expected to arrive early Sunday afternoon." Theo actually smiled at his brother's good fortune while Tiberius continued. "Now, let us move on to the rest of your ... Hogwarts experience. How are your grades? How have the teachers been treating you? Well, other than the one that caused you to be petrified, of course. Have you made any friends? Or enemies? Any Mudbloods or blood traitors causing you any problems?" Tiberius paused to slurp up some tea. "I hear tell that some uppity little Mudblood tramp is first in your class! I suppose she must be simply  _awful_! In  _my_  day, we'd have dealt  _properly_  with trash like that."

Despite his best efforts to occlude, Theo put his cup back onto his saucer with just  _a little_  too much force, causing them to clank audibly. Most Muggles would not have even noticed the sound, but Purebloods of Ancient and Noble Houses are taught the social graces practically as soon as they finish teething, and Theo couldn't help but grimace at the faux pas he'd made. He looked up at his father.

"Her name is Hermione Granger. She's been first in our class two years running. And yes, she is generally believed to be ..." Theo paused for a fraction of a second to decide whether to use the word his father obviously wanted to hear. In his mind's eye, he saw Hermione's eyes and felt the warmth that was always in them and decided that his father could rot. "... a  _Muggleborn_. However, there is some speculation that she is related to the Dagworth-Grangers, most likely through squibs."

"Really," Tiberius said almost languidly. "How interesting. I suppose that is why our dear friend Lucius Malfoy allowed her to tutor the children of his vassals, Crabbe and Goyle. Duncan and Gregory Sr. were both quite vexed about it and told me so repeatedly when they dined here."

Theo raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware that our House socialized with Lord Crabbe and Lord Goyle except when they were accompanying Lord Malfoy. If I remember correctly, you had previously described them as ...  _beneath_  us."

"Hmm. Yes. Yes, I did. Sour grapes, I suppose. You see, in retrospect, I think I was a bit jealous of the fact that Crabbe and Goyle were both vassals of our good friend Lucius Malfoy rather than myself. Even oafish buffoons can be of value if they can remember to vote which way you tell them to. Their five votes each added to my own bloc might well have moved the Wizengamot in a more ... convivial direction on a number of issues."

He took another loud slurp, causing Theo to wince slightly. "And speaking of our good friend Lucius Malfoy, how was the summer last which you spent with him? Did he treat you well?"

"Quite well, Father. He was a perfect host."

"I've no doubt. I'll wager he treated you as if you were his own."

Theo froze for just an instant. He knew his father had been toying with him since the moment he'd arrived at King's Cross, but there was definitely a hidden meaning in that last sentence that was lost on him. Slightly afraid that something important had just slipped past, he elected to say nothing in response, and after a brief silence, Tiberius shrugged his shoulders and moved on.

"But in any case, I now see that jealousy is a futile and unnecessary emotion. Even more so now in light of recent developments. Do you get along with the Crabbe and Goyle heirs?"

Theo nodded. "I've had no difficulties with them worth mentioning."

Slurp. "And Goyle's young ward, Amaryllis Wilkes?"

The boy hesitated. Harry had told him of Lord Goyle's plan to possibly marry Amy off to Tiberius Nott, a man more than forty years her senior, as part of a monstrous plot to somehow acquire the missing Wilkes fortune. Was this where his father was going?

"I haven't spent that much time with her to be honest. She's a year behind me after all."

Tiberius nodded. "And besides, I suppose so much of your time is monopolized by the Potter Heir, isn't it?"

" _And_ _finally_ _now we stop dancing and get to the heart of it!_ " Theo cocked his head to the side as if contemplating the matter. "I would hardly say he monopolizes it, Father, but he is the Heir to an Ancient and Noble House, though obviously not one with which we normally associate. Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter each have their own circle of friends. I found Potter's both easier to enter and potentially more lucrative to House Nott."

"Did you indeed, Theodore?" Just a hint of coldness crept into the former Death Eater's voice, but Theo refused to be intimidated.

"Yes, father, I did indeed. Although there is no love between House Potter and House Nott, Harry Potter  _loathes_  his parents and has almost as much disdain for his brother, the Boy-Who-Lived. But he has been able to conceal that disdain for the most part, and now has influence over Lord Potter, who is also the new Chief Auror. Was I  _wrong_  to develop a relationship with him? Harry  _is_  a Slytherin, after all. Just like us."

Tiberius said nothing at first. He simply stared at his son with the ghost of a smile and an altogether disturbing gleam in his eyes. "Just like ...  _us_ , you say? What an ... interesting way to put it, my son. Perhaps sometime soon we'll have more opportunities to, shall we say,  _explore all our commonalities_."

Theo said nothing. Once again, he thought that there was some subtext to his father's words that he was missing beyond the obvious one of their barely concealed mutual hatred for one another.

"But that comes later," Nott continued. "Finish your tea and then go up to your room and get freshened up. You said you had ' _no difficulties_ ' with Crabbe and Goyle  _fils_. Perhaps tonight we can improve your relations with them. We'll be hosting the Crabbes and the Goyles this evening at eight o'clock sharp. Formal attire of course."

The boy blinked a few times as he processed this. "The Crabbes and Goyles are coming here tonight, Father? May I ask why?"

"Can not an old widower open up his musty old home to entertain two men who were once his comrades in arms, along with their families."

"Comrades ... in arms?" Theo said carefully.

"Well," Tiberius said with a nasty smirk. "That's how I choose to remember them. Comrades in arms from those awful, awful days when we were all three Imperiused into serving the Dark Lord. Totally against our will, as you well know."

Theo nodded at that but said nothing. After a few more seconds, he stood and bowed respectfully to his father and then left for his room. Once inside, he leaned his back against the door, closed his eyes, and exhaled heavily. Then, he surveyed the bedroom that hadn't been slept in for nearly two years. There was a faint mustiness to the room, but the house elves had dutifully kept it clean and free of dust. He passed into the en suite bathroom and washed his face. When he came back out, he noticed that his dress robes that had been in his trunk were hanging from the closet door, freshly pressed. He examined them briefly and then moved over to open the dresser which was already full of his Hogwarts clothes.

For several seconds, Theo stared down at the clothing which had also been in his trunk as if lost in thought. Then, he quickly opened the trunk and confirmed that it was completely empty. THeo hesitated, and despite his considerable Occlumency skills, he noticed that his heart was beating faster. Slowly, he reached down to the base of the trunk and tapped a particular knot in the polished pine with a rhythmic pattern. An invisible seam in the wood opened up to reveal the secret compartment in which he'd concealed his Notice-Me-Not ring, his poison detecting monocle, his Occlumency books, and all the other things which his older brother had given him without their father's permission to help protect him both from enemy's at Hogwarts and enemies much closer to home.

For nearly five seconds, Theo forgot how to breath. The secret compartment was empty, and all the magical items within were gone, presumably taken by Lord Nott's house elves when they emptied his trunk. Theo slid down to the floor with his back against the trunk and put his face in his hands.

* * *

_**That night ...** _

All things considered, dinner went surprisingly well. Tiberius insisted that Theo sit at his left hand at the long dinner table, but he had not been called upon to make much small talk with the grownups. After dessert, Lord Nott ordered Theo to lead the other children to the parlor and entertain them "with Exploding Snap or whatever you children play nowadays." The adults would retire to the Billiard Room for drinks and discussion. Once in the parlor, Theo led Greg, Vincent, Amy, and Drusilla through a quick game of Snitch Snatcher, a board game version of Quidditch. Over the course of the game, Theo discreetly gave Amy the signal Harry had devised and shared with his Slytherin allies that indicated he needed a distraction. After allowing Drusilla to win the first game, Amy announced that she needed to use the facilities and would Theo please show her where they were. Gallantly, he led the girl out of the room while the other three set up for another game.

"So where are we really going?" Amy whispered as Theo led her down the gloomy oak-paneled corridors of Nott Hall. She shuddered as she spoke – aside from being dimly lit, the walls were covered by the spoils of Lord Nott's many hunting expeditions. Among his other eccentricities, the man was an enthusiastic amateur taxidermist.

" _We_  aren't going anywhere," Theo replied. " _You_  are going to the loo, while I am doing some sneaking about. There's actual security that has to be bypassed where I'm going, and since you don't know this place as well as I do, you'd only get us caught." He stopped in front of a large door. "Here's the toilet. Spend as much time here as you think seems plausible. If I'm not here when you get back, head on back to the others and make up some excuse for me." He paused. "Tell the Crabbes that I've gone to get snacks. They'll buy that."

"Theo," Amy asked tentatively. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

He smiled wanly. "Amy, we're the blood traitor children of Death Eaters. When are we not in trouble?"

With that, he headed off around the corner and then paused long enough to twist a wall sconce. A small door opened in the wood paneling, and the boy darted inside. Quickly, he made his way through the nest of secret passages in the manor, deftly bypassing the alarms Tiberius had put into place. Soon, he was standing in front of a glass window that overlooked the billiard room. Or at least, it was a glass window from the side Theo was facing. From the perspective of those on the other side, it was a rather lurid moving portrait of Acteon being transfigured into a stag and then ripped apart and devoured by his own hounds as punishment for surprising the goddess Diana as she bathed. As Tiberius had happily explained to Theo years earlier, the moving painting had been commissioned by the former Lord Decius Nott back in the mid-19th century to celebrate a successful hunt. The "model" for Acteon was a poor Muggle who had been hunted down and killed by Decius and some of his friends prior to the ban on Muggle Hunting, and the portrait was drawn from Decius's cherished memories of the event. From Theo's side of the painting, the poor Muggle's death was only a faint after-image repeated over and over again, which he did his best to ignore as he watched and listened to the scheming of his father and the other four Death Eaters who had come calling to seek his favor.

* * *

_**20 June 1993  
8:00 a.m.** _

Theo had risen at dawn, as was now his practice, for a brisk thirty minute jog around the grounds. As he ran, the boy reached out with his magical senses to get a feel for the placement of the estate's wards. He couldn't tell what each ward did, but during his brief tutelage with Lord Malfoy, he'd learned to tell where wards were and how to identify any that were physically dangerous. He was mildly surprised to note that the estate did not appear to have any wards that could instantly incapacitate or injure intruders as Malfoy Manor did. Instead, there only appeared to be alarm wards although, of course, it was always possible that those alarms could trigger some other magical effect that was beyond his perception. His magical senses were still quite weak, and he'd not had a chance at Hogwarts to refine them since there were just  _too many_  wards at the school for a beginner to make sense of.

He returned to the house, got a quick bath (Lord Nott disapproved of showers as being "Mugglish"), and then went down for breakfast which was served in the main dining hall where the formal dinner had taken place the night before. Then, Theo had sat at his father's left hand. This morning, they were at opposite ends of the long table more than twenty feet apart.

"Good morning, Theodore!" Tiberius said jovially as Theo entered. The greeting actually startled the boy – Tiberius not had never wished him a good morning in his entire life. He took a deep breath and smiled as cheerfully as he could manage.

"Good morning, Father," he replied easily as he took a seat. There was already a plate in front of him with half of a grapefruit on it. Theo sighed. One of Tiberius's few quirks that could be considered merely annoying rather than horrifying was his insistence that everyone in the household eat the same three-course breakfast every morning: half a grapefruit, a plate of scrambled eggs and sausages, and a strawberry blintz for dessert. When the boy had arrived at Hogwarts, he'd actually been amazed at the diversity of breakfast foods available, since he'd assumed everyone else in the world ate the same thing every morning as well. Silently resigning himself to a summer of breakfast monotony, he sliced into the grapefruit with his spoon.

"Did you enjoy your time spent with your schoolmates last night, Theodore?"

"Yes, Father. It was quite enjoyable. Did you have an enjoyable time with the parents?"

"Mmm," Tiberius said around the huge chunk of grapefruit that filled his mouth. "Enjoyable and profitable." He reached for a napkin to wipe away the grapefruit juice that had dribbled down the side of his face before continuing. "It seems that Duncan and Gregory Sr. both see more advantage to joining my camp than remaining in Malfoy's, particularly since the fool has apparently become a Muggle-lover. I always thought he was weak ... him and his spawn." Tiberius gave Theo a funny look at that.

"There have been rumors that Lord Malfoy was no longer able to afford to pay the Wizengamot dues for their Houses. Something to do with his divorce from Draco's mother."

Tiberius barked out a laugh and then attacked his grapefruit once more with gusto. "I've no doubt. Poncy fool never deserved a woman like her."

Theo looked up in surprise but resisted the temptation to ask his father about his sudden appreciation for Narcissa Black, opting instead for safer ground. "If Lord Malfoy is truly unable to pay for his vassals, do you plan to swear them to House Nott?"

"In time," he replied. "Their oaths to House Malfoy are still valid through the end of the year. In January, though, heh-heh, we'll see some changes I wager."

" _Yeah, Dad,_ " Theo thought to himself as he picked at his breakfast. " _Including a marriage announcement!_ "

The boy was still sickened by what he'd learned the night before while spying upon his father's meeting with the other Death Eaters. Goyle was really going to do it! He was really going to sign off on a marriage contract between Amy Wilkes and Tiberius Nott, in exchange for a lump sum payment of half-a-million galleons to House Goyle plus ten percent of whatever eventually gets recovered from the missing Wilkes fortune after Tiberius had sired a son with his child bride. Except that the Wilkes fortune apparently wasn't missing after all – all the Death Eaters at the meeting the previous night knew that whatever Erasmus Wilkes had left behind was contained in an impregnable vault somewhere beneath the ruins of Wilkes Manor, but it was only accessible to whoever held the title of Lord Wilkes ... though apparently  _Regent_  Wilkes might have just as much access if the next Lord Wilkes was an infant.

It took all of Theo's emotional self-control to resist his urge to hex his father. Not that it would do any good, as the man was a skilled duelist and also protected by magical defenses built into the manor house itself while he was on the grounds. The one bright spot was that the Death Eaters believed that Lucius Malfoy would likely oppose the marriage while Goyle remained his vassal, which meant that Harry had until January of 1994 to work one of his patented Potter miracles.

The two Notts made idle chitchat as they finished their respective grapefruits. Rogo cleared away the dishes and then brought in the second course on two covered plates. The elf removed the cover from Lord Nott's plate, and he tore into a sausage aggressively. Then, Rogo placed the other covered plate before Theo, and as the boy picked up his knife and fork, the elf pulled the cover away. But there was no food on the dish.

Instead, there was a silver ring, a brass monocle, two books, and several other minor magical trinkets – in short, everything that Alex had entrusted to his little brother and that the boy had kept hidden in the secret compartment of his trunk.

For several seconds, the room was silent save for the scraping of Tiberius Nott's knife and fork as he calmly devoured his eggs and sausages. "How's your breakfast, son?" he finally inquired in a cold voice.

Theo leaned back in his chair and looked his father squarely in the eye. For a second, the boy expected some kind of Legilimency attack, but nothing came. As he'd suspected, Tiberius had never had the patience or self-control to learn the art. Indeed, Theo suspected that Tiberius didn't even know any Occlumency beyond the bare minimum he'd needed to conceal his status as a Death Eater.

"Well,  _Father_ , the grapefruit was alright, but the second course doesn't look like it would be very filling." As casually as he could, Theo wiped his own mouth with his napkin and then placed it on his lap. As he did, he carefully moved his hand towards the wand in his pocket. He needn't have bothered. Rogo snapped his fingers, and the wand flew out of its resting place, hovered in the air for a few seconds, and then gently floated down to the serving tray to join the other magical items. Theo glared at the crippled elf who merely shrugged.

Tiberius snorted cruelly. "Now then, Theodore. I find myself with a mystery to solve ... and a punishment to levy. I see two possibilities. The first is that you  _stole_  these heirlooms of House Nott from your brother to whom they had been entrusted, a crime that demands harsh punishment. The second is that your brother  _gave_  you those heirlooms for your own use. That seems unlikely to me, of course. Alexander did  _ask_  me if he could give you some of those objects when it was time for you to go to Hogwarts, but I  _expressly forbade_ him from doing so. Still, if he  _defied_  me..."

The man gave every appearance of careful consideration, but Theo wasn't fooled. This was a prepared speech.

"Alexander is my Heir Apparent, and the law bars me from properly punishing him for all but the most serious of infractions. But defying a direct order  _not_  to mishandle family heirlooms?!  _That_  is something for which the law would allow me to properly chastise him for his disobedience despite the protections of his Heirship. And I  _would_  chastise him most harshly for defying me in this manner."

Tiberius tilted his head and smiled. "You've experienced such chastisement in the past when your misdeeds have forced me to take up my fatherly duties, Theodore. Which made a greater impression on you? The lash? Or the cane?"

Theo said nothing at first. He simply reached out for his water glass and took a long sip before offering a reply. "Well, the cane certainly left bigger scars,  _Father_. But speaking hypothetically, what would you do if I said it wasn't Alex but  _me_? If it turns out that I stole these heirlooms without Alex's knowledge and that he is guilty only of not telling you because he was afraid of how you'd react? What sort of punishment would  _I_  receive?  _Hypothetically_ , that is."

The man's smile broadened into a grin. "If you were to  _confess_ , Theodore? Why in that case, your punishment would be ...  _nothing at all_." He paused. "Well, certainly nothing  _physical_  at least."

Theo's eyes widened. "Oh really?" he said almost sarcastically. "No punishments? That's a bit of a switch for you. You also said ' _harsh_ ' punishment just a second ago. And I recall you being rather enthusiastic at punishment whenever I did something you didn't like. After all, you've only  _hated me since the day I saw you MURDER MOTHER!_ "

Tiberius's expression seemed almost amiable at that accusation. "Oh that's not true, Theodore – I hated you long before then.  _But_ , I am being quite truthful. You see, stealing family heirlooms is a crime serious enough to permit me to do what I've wanted to do for a long, long time – kick you out of this family for good."

"What are you talking about? You could have disinherited me any time you wanted!"

"Disinheritance is not enough, you little  _bastard_!" the vile man spat. "When I die, Alexander will claim the Lordship, and he would have the power to  _reinstate_  you. I want you gone forever. And if you were to ...  _confess_  to the crime of stealing heirlooms, I would have the right to expel you in a manner that no future Lord Nott could undo. You would cease to be Theodore Nott and instead would become ... Theodore No-Name, at least until you could persuade some other foolish wizard or witch to adopt you into their family. Or perhaps you could persuade someone with a respectable background to marry you. That Mudblood you're so enamored with, perhaps. Either way, it would be no concern of mine."

"You really expect me to believe that you'd just let me go once I'm out of the family? That I should expect you to refrain from trying to  _kill me_ once I give up my name?"

Tiberius scoffed. "What makes you think your last name can stop me from killing you now? There are more than enough Wizengamot members who share my views and would never tolerate the Lord of an Ancient and Noble House being punished in any way, but certainly not over the death of a rebellious second child who had become an unrepentant blood traitor. But I am being quite truthful in this – once you're no longer a Nott, I swear I'll take no further action against you. Indeed, I will summon our solicitor and swear  _an Unbreakable Vow_ promising that I will never intentionally seek to harm you and will never deliberately command others to do so in exchange for a confession of your crimes against House Nott. Your inheritance from your mother's dowry will pay for your Hogwarts education with a little left over for living expenses. Other than that, you will walk out of here with your wand and the clothes on your back and nothing else, and Alexander will be unable to provide you with any further assistance in the future. But you will be free of me. And I of you."

Theo sat quietly. More than anything else, he wanted to talk to Harry Potter or at least Blaise Zabini right now. His Occlumency kept him calm and focused, but his particular strain of cunning didn't lend itself to legal maneuvers.

"If I confess as you want, what's to stop you from having me arrested and prosecuted?"

"The legal process that will see you stripped of your name –  _Sanctumen Ultimo_  is its formal name – is considered a punishment that trumps all others where the Noble Houses are concerned, but if you wish, I will also state in my Unbreakable Vow that I will never seek legal redress against you for anything you may have done before today."

The man smiled again, just as cruelly as before. "Of course, all this is conditional on you being the one who stole those heirlooms for your own use. Alexander will be home tomorrow. If you have not confessed, I will ask him whether he was the one responsible and see what he says. Perhaps he'll confess in order to save you. Perhaps he will blame you regardless of the truth to avoid punishment. Perhaps he'll choose one of those options after an hour or so on the rack... with you in attendance as witness. I do hope that all my old equipment is in good working order. It hasn't seen use since ... since I was under the Imperius and the Dark Lord  _forced_ me to torture Mudbloods and blood traitors. Against my will, as you know."

Theo closed his eyes and centered himself. From the day his mother died until the day Harry Potter called him a friend, there had been exactly one person in the entire world who had cared about him. The rational part of Theo's mind was screaming that there was some trick or hidden trap he couldn't see because he lacked the knowledge of legal process to identify it. That even with an Unbreakable Vow, there would still be some way for his father to hurt him or maybe even murder him. But the emotional side of him simply didn't care, because the worst thing that Tiberius Nott could do to Theo would be to kill him, and he would rather die than watch his brother Alexander be tortured just for trying to protect him.

"I want to know what the Vow would say before I agree to anything. That and what you want me to say in my ... confession."

Tiberius reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out two rolls of parchment. "As it just so happens..."

* * *

A few hours later, Nott's solicitor, an unusually tall and disturbingly pale man by the name of Mortimer Renwick, had come and gone. Theo had actually been surprised to see the man out and about during the day, as he'd only ever visited the Manor before at night and Theo had always suspected Renwick to be a vampire. He would file the official paperwork on Monday morning, along with a copy of Theo's confession which the boy had been required to write with a blood quill. It had been a long and detailed confession, which was why Theo's left arm was now wrapped up with gauze bandages through which some fresh blood could still be seen. The fact that Theo caught Renwick staring at his bloody arm and licking his lips did little to reassure the boy that he was not, in fact, a vampire.

Once the documents were filed, Theo Nott would officially become Theo No-Name in the eyes of Wizarding Britain, though the solicitor advised that some of the initial effects would be triggered immediately upon Lord Nott signing the paperwork. After Renwick left, Theo had been "allowed" to pick out some clothing he could take with him (specifically one set of casual wear plus some extra underpants) out of Lord Nott's "generosity." Said clothing, along with the boy's school uniforms, books, and supplies, was unceremoniously tossed into a beaten old trunk pulled down from the attic, one which was not remotely as nice as the trunk he'd used for his first two years at Hogwarts. Theo had also been permitted entry to the kitchens to make himself a sandwich before leaving, but no house elf was permitted to help him. Which was fine with Theo as he wouldn't eat anything prepared by a Nott house elf anyway if he could avoid it.

Just after noon, Theo walked out the front door lugging his battered old trunk behind him. Then, he stopped short and took in the scene. All of his clothing and personal possessions except for what was now in his trunk was in a big pile in the courtyard in front of the house. The picture of Theo's late mother that had hung in his bedroom was perched on top so that he could see her sad face. Tiberius stood next to the pile, and as soon as Theo came out, the man smirked contemptuously before aiming his wand at it. " _ **INCENDIO.**_ " As most of the boy's worldly possessions went up in flames, Tiberius sauntered over to him before aiming his wand at the trunk and shrinking it down to pocket size. Theo bent down to pick up the trunk before pocketing it.

"Consider that the last favor I'll ever do for you, Theo No-Name."

"And, ironically, also the first. I don't suppose transportation to ... anywhere other than here is in the cards?"

Tiberius reached into a pocket and flipped a galleon to him. "You're still a wizard, boy. Once you're outside the wards and on the main road, you can call the Knight Bus." Then, from another pocket, he withdrew Theo's wand and handed it over.

"Thanks," Theo said sarcastically. He turned and looked down the cobblestone driveway. It was about a quarter-mile to the massive archway that marked the entrance to Nott Manor. On either side were tall trees, part of the large forest that surrounded the manor house.

"Well, you'd better hop to it," Tiberius said. "It's a long walk to the main road after all. It's good that you've taken up physical exercise... like a good little Muggle-lover, I suppose." He turned and walked up the steps towards the front door as Theo started down the lane. But then, the former Death Eater turned and called out to his former son.

"Wait!" Theo turned back towards his (ex)father. "Whatever else I am, Theodore No-Name, I am a Nott, and we come from a long line of sportsmen and hunters. It would be unsportsmanlike of me to simply let you leave without advising you of two details. First, I swore an oath that I would never intentionally try to hurt you. Now that you are disowned pursuant to the rite of Sanctumen Ultimo,  _I no longer_ _need_ _to hurt you intentionally_. Your future suffering is assured ...  _by operation of law._ "

Theo stared at the man but refused to give him any satisfaction by asking for any further explanation. He supposed he'd find out soon enough what Tiberius meant. "And the other thing?"

Tiberius smiled like a predator. "It does not contravene my oath never to intentionally hurt you if I simply remove my protection from you and allow events to take their natural course. You are no longer welcome in my home, Theodore No-Name. And Nott Manor has ways of dealing with intruders." Then, he turned and stalked into the manor, while Theo's attention was drawn to a cracking sound from the roof above.

As Theo watched in horror, three of the stone gargoyles slowly came to life and turned their heads down to stare at them, a low bestial growl coming from each.

Behind the boy, there was a quarter-mile-long private road that led to the front gate. He had no idea how fast the gargoyles could move, but he felt certain they could run him down on a straight path. The boy's face took on a determined expression.

" _Good thing for me I've been trying to figure out how to escape since I was seven!_ " he thought to himself before taking off away from both the house and driveway and towards the much closer tree line. Behind him, Theo heard three massive  _thumps_  followed by the sound of the stone gargoyles in pursuit. Ruefully, he realized he'd been right – the gargoyles sounded remarkably fast for heavy stone constructs.

Luckily, the woods surrounding Nott Manor were dense but also relatively free of predators, whether magical or no. Within seconds, he was into the forest. He risked a glance over his shoulder and was gladdened to see the gargoyles had slowed down since they were too big to duck around trees and hop over obstacles as nimbly as an athletic twelve-year-old boy. Theo gave a silent thanks to Gilderoy Lockhart (or whatever the former DADA professor was calling himself today) for eight months of fairly intense physical education. However much disdain Tiberius Nott had for physical exercise, Theo had been near the top of the Second Years for the PE class, and his time spent running obstacle courses served him well today.

In less than five minutes, a breathless Theo found what he was looking: the fifteen-foot-tall stone wall that marked the physical boundaries of the Nott estate and also the boundary of its wards. And if his memories of this place were correct, less than twenty feet beyond the wall was a public road. The boy's face and arms were full of scratches from the brambles he'd barreled through, and his clothes were torn and muddy. But he was nearly free ...  _if_  he could get over the wall before the gargoyles caught up with him. Theo ran towards a nearby tree whose heavy branches actually extended up and over the wall. Behind him, there was a crash as one of the gargoyles smashed its way through a hedge bush. He climbed as fast as he could and had just made it up onto a strong branch when the gargoyle leaped at him, missing his foot by inches. Snarling, the beast stepped back and then ran at the base of the tree, slamming into it with its great bulk. The tree shuddered, but Theo held onto the branch with a death-grip and did not fall. The gargoyle slammed into the tree a second time, then a third. The last blow actually made the tree shake and creak a bit. In the distance, Theo could hear the other gargoyles approaching.

The gargoyle started backing away from the tree for another go, and Theo saw his chance. He took a second to balance himself and then ran forward along the thick branch. Just as it started to give from his weight, he jumped and successfully grabbed hold of the top of the wall with both arms. He pulled himself over and dropped to the ground, giving out a pained yell as he twisted his ankle on the landing. A second later, the wall shook as the gargoyle slammed into it from the other side. Theo quickly pulled himself up and hobbled on one good leg towards the nearby road. If the wall truly marked the boundary of the wards, then he was safe.

Unfortunately, it did not. Or perhaps the gargoyles were simply capable of pursuing intruders beyond the Manor's wards. Either way, the gargoyle's forearms and head suddenly came over the top of the wall, and the massive beast struggled to pull itself over and continue the pursuit. Desperately, Theo staggered to the far side of the road as the gargoyle finally got past the wall. It was less than forty feet away, and running away was no longer an option. Theo pulled his wand out of his back pocket. Harry had given him a wand holster as a Christmas present, but unfortunately, it had gone up in flames not fifteen minutes earlier. He held his wand at the ready while the gargoyle prepared to strike. The creature took two slow steps towards Theo and then broke into a running leap.

At the last possible second, Theo thrust his arm out with his wand sticking straight up in the air. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, a squeal of brakes, and a deafening horn, as a purple three-decker bus appeared from nowhere to slam into the gargoyle at incredible speed. The impact hit the gargoyle head on, and it flew down the road, shattering into pieces. Theo peered around the front of the bus and back towards the wall. The heads of the other two gargoyles appeared over the wall as they took in the destruction of their brother.

"One down! Six to go!" the boy yelled out triumphantly. Then, he pulled himself up the steps of the bus. A flustered conductor helped the injured boy up.

"Um, welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or, ah, wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike and, ah ...  _what the hell did we just hit?!_ "

Theo took out the galleon his father had given him. "No idea, but they seem to come in threes, so I suggest you get us moving before the other two come after us."

Stan paled at that. "Alrighty-then. Where to?"

"Longbottom Manor, Lancashire."

"And your name?"

"Theo N..." Theo froze. While he knew that he was no longer a part of the Nott family, he'd started to say his former name out of reflex ... and was surprised to find that he no longer could. The words "Theo Nott" simply wouldn't come out of his mouth.

"No-Name," he finally said in a very quiet voice. "Theo No-Name."

"Hmm," replied Stan. "Does that have a hyphen in it?"

* * *

**Longbottom Manor**  
Lancashire  
6:00 p.m.

Exhausted from the days events, Theo relaxed in a comfortable overstuffed chair in the parlor of Longbottom Manor and tried not to wince as Andromeda Tonks rubbed a healing ointment into his sprained ankle. Although she and her husband Ted shared the duties at their small clinic, she was the one who had specialized in pediatric healing. Also present were Lady Augusta, Neville, and Harry. The latter two were a flurry of emotions: relief that their friend had made it to Longbottom Manor safely but also sadness and fury as Theo shared the tale of his adventure. He'd arrived an hour earlier, beaten and exhausted but free, and he'd immediately and formally requested sanctuary from Augusta and Neville, which they were quick to grant.

"The ointment should fix your ankle on your arm by morning, young man," said the healer. "And the Murtlap Essence will have healed all the cuts from the blood quill. And by tomorrow , I'll have a regimen of potions ready for  _all the other things_  that have been done to you over the last twelve years for which you've never received treatment."

Theo smiled. "Thank you, Healer Tonks."

"I still can't believe he made you use a blood quill to write a whole confession!" said Harry angrily. "I had to sign my name with one once. That was  _enough_!"

"Yeah, but enough about my sad, sad life," said Theo. "What are we going to do about Amy?"

"Relax, Theo," Harry said. "We've got time ... and options. Artie and Hestia are working on possible solutions, and you yourself said we've got until next January. I promise you, we'll save her."

In point of fact, Harry  _already_  had a plan in place to rescue Amy Wilkes from her impending forced marriage (and likely her subsequent murder). It was, however, a risky and wildly Gryffindorish plan that would sacrifice most of his long term agenda and also potentially trigger a national controversy that would make Jim getting outed as a Parselmouth seem inconsequential in comparison. Which was why he was grateful that he still had seven months to come up with a less explosive alternative.

"I'm kinda more interested in what your father did to disown you," said Neville. "I know it's possible to disown a family member, but I've never heard of way that can't be reversed."

"Likewise," said Andi. "And I have some experience in this matter, seeing as how I spent several months as ' _Andromeda No-Name_ ' before Ted and I got married. Theoretically, the next Lord Black could reinstate me, but since that's most likely going to be Narcissa's boy, I'm not holding my breath. Anyway, the first few months of my expulsion were near the end of my last year at Hogwarts, and it was not a pleasant time in my life. But I survived it, and so will you. You have a good group of friends who will support you and, as I understand it, no hostile family members attending Hogwarts.  _I_ was in school at the same time as Narcissa ... and Tiberius."

"Fath... Tiberius and Narcissa Black actually went to school together?" Theo asked. "He, um, talked about her with ... well, unusual fondness, for him at least. Which, honestly, is something I never imagined him capable of. Did they ever ... date?"

"Oh, it was all so long ago, but I do think they went to Hogsmeade together a few times. That all ended when our father signed her up for a betrothal contract."

"With Lucius Malfoy?" asked Harry.

"Actually, she was  _supposed_  to marry Cassius Malfoy, Lucius's older brother. He died in an accident in ... '75 or '76, I think, and somehow Lucius ended up marrying her instead. Poor fellow. They never did get along when they were at school together. Divorce is quite rare among wizard-kind, but I'm not at all surprised to see it in their case."

Harry said nothing but simply absorbed that insight into Lucius Malfoy's personal history.

"Were there any other ... complications from losing your family name, Healer Tonks?" Theo asked while trying unsuccessfully to conceal his nervousness. "Tiberius hinted that ... that I might  _suffer_  from being called Theo No-Name."

"Trust me, Theo," she said authoritatively. "It doesn't hurt in the slightest to be disowned from people who hate you and who you hate back."

Theo smiled wanly. "Yeah, but he said it wasn't just a disownment. It's something special that has to be filed with the Wizengamot tomorrow morning." Theo closed his eyes and summoned up the memory. " _Sanctumen Ultimo_ , he called it. Do you know what that is?"

Andi shook her head no, but then she and the three boys were startled when Augusta Longbottom dropped her tea cup to the floor and stared at Theo in shock.

"Theodore," she said intently. "This is very important. Do you mean to say that when your father disowned you, he did so pursuant to the Ultimate Sanction provision of the Inheritance Act?"

Theo looked at her in surprise before stammering an answer. "He never said anything about the Inheritance Act or gave the English translation. He just called it the  _Sanctumen Ultimo_. Why?"

But Augusta didn't answer. She was already up and briskly walking towards the floo. A dash of floo powder later, she was practically yelling into the fire. "Podmore Residence, London."

"Gran, what's going on?" asked a suddenly nervous Neville, but the woman shushed him. Seconds later, Artemus Podmore poked his head into the flames.

"Augusta? What's wrong? Is it something with Harry?" he asked.

"No ... at least not directly, although I'm sure he'll be very interested in what you have to say. Please come through. It's very important"

Three minutes later, Harry's solicitor was seated across from Theo, listening to the boy's story with a grave expression. Then, he turned to the group and explained the history of the Sanctumen Ultimo, the Ultimate Sanction.

In 1588, England was attacked by an alliance of wizards and Muggles from Spain led by Duke Estaban de Cortez y Slytherin, the most powerful and influential descendant of Salazar Slytherin alive at the time. The invasion was repulsed by a combination of Muggle seamanship, wizarding weather-manipulation, and copious amounts of luck. While the British victory was a source of immense national pride to the Muggles during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the Wizengamot took a more jaundiced view of what had been the most serious magical attempt to conquer the nation since the time of William the Conqueror. Their fears were exacerbated by the fact that there remained several British wizarding families, including four who held seats in the Wizengamot itself, who were openly descended from Salazar Slytherin and who were suspected of divided loyalties, if not actual treasonous intent. After much heated discussion, the Wizengamot eventually passed the Inheritance Act of 1588 which enacted sweeping reforms to the process by which Heirs to Wizengamot families could eventually claim their family seats. It also required the various Slytherin-descended families to disclaim their heritage, take new family names, swear allegiance to Wizarding Britain over all other nations ... and expel any family members who refused to comply. To facilitate this last requirement, the Sanctumen Ultimo was added to the Act to  _ensure_  that no descendant of Salazar Slytherin nor any other wizard whose heritage threatened the body politic would ever be able to make use of his family's resources in the process.

"But ... the Notts aren't descended from Slytherin," Theo said in confusion. "Are we?"

"We have no way of knowing, but it doesn't really matter," Artie said. "The Ultimate Sanction was not limited to Slytherin families even though that was the reason for its passage. It can be used against  _any_  member of a family with a hereditary Wizengamot seat whose Lord judges that family member guilty of treason or any other action which if left unchallenged threatens the survival of the family."

"Treason?! All I confessed to was stealing a few minor family heirlooms! And I didn't really even do that!"

Artie sighed. "I'm sorry, Theo, but the statute ... doesn't actually define what sorts of crimes can be used to justify the Ultimate Sanction. The Inheritance Act was passed in a time of national panic and included many clauses that in retrospect were ill-advised. The only thing that has prevented misuse of the Ultimate Sanction for the past 400 years has been social convention. And for the most part, that's been enough. There were about a dozen wizards from Slytherin families subjected to the sanction in the immediate aftermath of the law's passage, and no more than a half-dozen in the four centuries since, all of whom were wizards and witches who'd already been sent to Azkaban for serious crimes. I don't think it's been invoked at all in over a hundred years, and I've never heard of a Wizengamot Lord using it frivolously out of sheer spite towards a family member, but ... I'm afraid nothing in the law actually forbids that."

"How bad is this, Artie?" Harry asked. "What will the effect on Theo be?"

"At its fundamental level, it works sort of like an Oath of Enmity except that it targets an individual with a social curse levied by the Wizengamot rather than calling upon the personal magic of a family head."

"An Oath of Enmity," Theo said. "Like what was going on between the Weasleys and the Malfoys." He shook his head and sighed deeply. "In other words, Alex is going to hate me for the rest of my life. Okay. I ... I can deal with that. Just so long as he's safe."

Artie looked at the boy with profound sadness and then shook his head. "Theo, I'm ... sorry, but ... it's not just your family."

Harry's eyes narrowed at that. "Go on, Artie."

"It's  _like_  a curse of enmity, but it affects everyone in your former family, plus all their vassals." He took a deep breath. " _Plus_  everyone with whom House Nott has sworn a reciprocal oath ... and all of  _their_ family members and vassals. It's like ... a  _web of hatred_  that connects to every wizard who's connected to your former house via a magical oath of any kind, no matter how indirect. And since House Nott is an Ancient and Noble House..."

Silence fell on the room. Theo leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes.

"We ... the Notts have reciprocal oaths with everyone who has a Wizengamot seat," he said quietly. "The whole world's going to hate me."

"Theo, come on," said Neville. "That's not true. You'll always have a place here with use. Isn't that right, Gran?" He turned back towards Augusta but was shocked by the stricken look on her face. "Uh, Gran?" He asked again more nervously, but it was Artie who answered.

"Tomorrow morning," he said in a grim voice, "Nott's solicitor will fill the papers sometime around 9 a.m. Shortly thereafter, every member of the Wizengamot, all of their families, all of their employees, and even anyone they've loaned money too will all be affected. When any of those people even  _think_  about Theo, they will immediately feel an overpowering sense of dislike. They will distrust everything he says. They will believe any negative stories they hear about him and discount any positive stories."

"You mean they'll act towards Theo like Muggles do around me," said Harry bitterly. Artie looked at him in surprise. "It's okay, Artie. Everyone here knows."

Artie had an almost pained expression on his face. "I see. Well, you're right. The reactions will be similar, although we have checked you for magic similar to this, and your ... condition is not related. And I don't think the Ultimate Sanction will likely trigger any violent responses against Theo, just gestures of contempt or dislike." He turned to Neville. "And yes, Neville, as Heirs to Ancient and Noble Houses, you and Harry will both be affected. Your Heir's ring won't protect you, Neville. If anything, it will make the effect more pronounced. Harry will be less affected because of his Occlumency training, but even then there will be problems."

"Such as?" Harry said in a clipped voice. Artie looked back to him and was mildly startled. The boy's eyes looked ... greener than usual.

"Ahem. Well, with your level of Occlumency, it would be possible for you to block out the imposed feeling of enmity, though it would likely be exhausting to do so constantly. However, those who can resist the effect and who choose to associate with Theo for extended periods of time will  _also_  eventually become subject to the enmity albeit in a lesser form. If you maintain an open friendship with Theo at Hogwarts, eventually your fellow students who are affected will look upon you the same way they do him. The safest course would be to publicly feign a dislike for him while keeping your continued friendship a secret. And if your friendship came out, it  _might_  be something your father could use against you."

"Harry..." Theo began, but Harry interrupted without even looking towards him.

"What about teachers at Hogwarts? Is there anyone who  _won't_ be affected? Surely Dumbledore won't start to hate Theo because of this."

"Teachers and staff will not be affected, as Hogwarts is shielded by its treaties with the Wizengamot and the Ministry. I imagine Muggleborns will be unaffected, as will most Halfblood students whose parents are neither Ministry employees nor bound by oath to any Noble House. Ministry employees and their families may or may not be affected depending upon their department. Healers are immune, since their oaths are to provide healing regardless of personal feelings about their patients. Likewise solicitors like myself."

"So how do we  _end_ it?" Neville interrupted angrily. "Lord Nott talked about adoption or marriage..."

"Yes," said Andromeda. "That is how I was able to take Ted's family name."

Artie shrugged. "Marriage would do it, I suppose, but both you and your prospective spouse would have to be over the age of seventeen and also have the approval of your spouse's head of house. Adoption could theoretically be done faster, but not just anyone can adopt Theo under these circumstances. As a practical matter, only another Noble family could do it, and they could  _only_  avoid falling under the Sanction if a member of the family owed Theo a life debt or if some comparable level of oath magic was in play."

"Theo saved my life," said Neville firmly. "And we've already offered him sanctuary."

"Neville," said Augusta gently. "While you may feel that Theo helped to save you back during your first year at Hogwarts, the actual requirements for a true life debt were not satisfied. You don't actually owe him a life debt. I'm sorry, but we cannot simply ... adopt Theo." She looked over to the other boy sadly. "No matter how much I would like to."

Theo smiled at her. "I appreciate that, Lady Augusta."

"Would the Sanction survive the death of Lord Nott himself?" Harry asked in a cold voice. A hush fell on the room as everyone turned to look at him. After a few seconds, Artie coughed softly into his hand.

"Yes. Yes, I'm ... afraid it would. Short of the two procedures I've outlined to secure a  _new_  name for Theo, the effects of the Sanction will last for the rest of his life and be passed on to any children he has. Historically, most people subjected to the Sanctumen Ultimo eventually fled the country rather than spend their entire lives as ... untouchables."

At that moment, there was a sudden flair of light from the fireplace and a voice called through.

"Longbottom Manor!" Theo's eyes widened in recognition and surprise. "This is Alexander Nott of House Nott. With your permission, I'd like to come through to see my brother."

* * *

At Theo's request, Lady Augusta quickly allowed his brother through. Though Theo had talked about him often, this was the first time Harry had seen the older Nott brother. A Sixth Year at Durmstrang, Alex looked like a taller and fitter version of his brother, though he wore his hair short, almost in a buzzcut, compared to Theo's shaggy moptop. He was still wearing part of a Durmstrang uniform when he came through the floo and bowed to Lady Augusta.

"Your ladyship, I hope you will forgive my forwardness, but I fear my time may be short. Might I speak to my brother alone. I swear on my fam... on the honor of my school that I will give all due respect to your hospitality."

Augusta nodded at his self-introduction and then directed the two brothers to the nearby library. As soon as they were gone, Harry went over to speak with Artie who argued quietly with him for a few minutes before they heading to over the floo themselves. To Neville's surprise, they were going to Potter Manor. Meanwhile, Andromeda stood lost in thought for a moment before heading through the floo herself to the Tonks Clinic.

Minutes later, when Alex and Theo were alone, the older boy pulled his sibling into a tight embrace. Finally able to relax his self-control for the first time in days, Theo broke down and wept into Alex's chest.

"I'm sorry ... it's all my fault! I sh-should have hidden those things better. I'm so sorry, Alex."

"Shhh, Theo! Stop that. It's not your fault. It's all mine, not yours!"

Theo looked up at the other boy. "How can it be your fault? You weren't even there!"

Alex stepped back with a sad expression. "Theo, Father's known that I gave you the ring and the other heirlooms since last summer."

Theo could only stare, dumbstruck.

"He demanded the ring back last July when you were at the Malfoys. He needed it for something. Still don't know what. But when I couldn't produce it, he knew I'd given it to you and demanded that I tell him what else I'd given you." Alex ran his hands through his thin hair. "We had a big row over it. Finally, I gave him an ultimatum."

Theo did a double-take. " _You_  ... gave  _him_  an ultimatum?"

Alex nodded. "I was confirmed as Heir Apparent by that point, and in another year, I'll be of age. I told him that if he didn't leave you alone, I'd go to the DMLE and denounce him as a Death Eater. Say I had proof that he'd faked being under the Imperius. We went round and round and finally ... we cut a deal." He looked down at the floor, his face flushed with shame. "I'm just sorry I wasn't clever enough to make it a better one."

The younger boy stared at Alex in confusion. "What kind of deal?"

"We swore an Unbreakable Vow. He was supposed to leave you alone. He wouldn't hurt you. He wouldn't disown you. He wouldn't do anything to interfere with your Hogwarts education." Alex blinked away his own tears of frustration. "The oath he swore to you this morning? There wasn't anything in it that he hadn't already sworn to." He shook his head ruefully. "It was all my fault. If I hadn't pushed so hard, he'd have never started looking for a loophole and never found that damnable Ultimate Sanction!"

Theo stood very quiet, almost without breathing. The knowledge that the elder Nott's Unbreakable Vow from this morning was meaningless was less important than what else Alex had said. "You  _both_  swore an Unbreakable Vow? Alex, what did you swear? What was  _your_  part of it?"

The boy sighed loudly. "Luckily nothing too bad. So long as he doesn't try to harm you, I'm bound not to reveal any family secrets. I can still talk to you for the time being because ..." he drifted off.

" _Because he'll continue thinking of me as family until tomorrow morning._ " Theo thought ruefully. "What else?" he asked urgently. "Tell me!"

"Nothing worth mentioning," Alex replied.

" _ALEX!_ " Theo practically yelled. Finally, Alex shook his head.

"Like I said, nothing important. You know that father's insane, especially when it comes to the Dark Lord. He's convinced that You-Know-Who will come back from the grave someday and lead the Purebloods to glory. It's all rubbish, of course. Dead is dead. I even asked Headmaster Karkaroff about it one time – it's not common knowledge, but he was a Death Eater in his youth – and he was emphatic that the Dark Lord was dead for good. So when Father demanded it in exchange for his oath to leave you be, I swore that if the impossible happened and the Dark Lord returned bodily, I would swear allegiance to him and take the Dark Mark."

Alex shook his head and laughed at the absurdity of his father's demand. "Like I said. Nothing worth mentioning."

Theo could only stare speechless with horror at his older brother who had unwittingly sold his soul on Theo's behalf and gotten nothing to show for it.

* * *

An hour later, it was time for Alex to say goodbye. Harry and Artie had returned from Potter Manor after less than twenty minutes, and whatever had happened left Harry mad enough to spit nails. Soon after, Andromeda also returned, with Ted Tonks along for the ride. Alex gave Theo one last hug before he left and whispered one last farewell.

"Just remember. When we see each other again, the Sanction may make me act terribly towards you, but remember –  _it's not me._ In my heart, Theo, I will  _never_  stop loving you."

Then, Alex Nott wiped his eyes and stepped back through the floo to Nott Hall. He would never recognize Theo as his brother again.

The rest continued to talk until well after midnight. After a long private conversation, Ted and Andromeda Tonks announced that they would take in Theo for the summer. As Ted was a Muggleborn and Andi was disowned from her House, neither would be affected by the Sanction. They could not formally adopt the boy, but so long as their fostering was kept quiet, they would suffer no adverse reaction from putting a roof over his head. They would return to Hogsmeade tonight and prepare a room while Theo spent one last night with Harry and Neville.

* * *

_**21 June 1993** _

The Tonkses returned for Theo the next morning and transported him back to their clinic-slash-home for the summer. Augusta, suddenly no longer hungry, excused herself, leaving Neville and Harry to finish their breakfast in relative silence.

"So," Neville said after a few minutes. "We never got round to talking about it last night, but what happened when you went to Potter Manor."

"Nothing," Harry spat. " _Literally_  nothing. James said that he's sorry, but there's no legal options to prevent Tiberius from using the Sanction against Theo. He  _did_  promise to talk to Pettigrew and see if there were any legal hurdles they could throw up to stop the Nott-Wilkes wedding. And while I may not care for Peter Pettigrew very much, he  _is_  a good lawyer. He may be ... _sketchy_  but it's not like he's a Death Eater or anything."

Neville nodded and ate his breakfast in silence for a few minutes.

"What?" Harry finally said. Neville looked up at him in surprise. "You want to ask me something but are nervous about it. Natural legilimens, remember?"

The other boy made a face. " _That's_  going to get annoying, I think." He played with his food for few seconds before speaking again. "Last night ... what you asked Artie ... about whether Lord Nott's death would end the Sanction... How serious were you?"

Then, it was Harry's turn to play with his food for a while. "I ... dunno. If it would save Theo from ... well, what  _I've_  had to live with for my whole life, then yeah, I think I would try to arrange Tiberius Nott's death." He looked up nervously. "Do you think ... less of me for saying that?"

"No, because it's a moot point. But Harry, I remember what you asked me back in First Year. About how you wanted me to be a compass for you. And I take that seriously. Jumping straight to murdering somebody as nearly your first thought? Your compass is a little worried that you might be heading in the wrong direction."

Harry nodded but said nothing. After all, he  _did_  ask Neville to act as a moral compass for him. And he still thought he needed one. Intellectually, he understood that a boy of his age shouldn't be thinking about the practicality of murder as a way to achieve an objective. And yet, he'd been ready to kill Draco in First Year and been prevented by a minor miracle from killing Ron Weasley in his Second. He was a Slytherin being groomed to become the  _Prince_  of Slytherin, a position for which ruthlessness was an essential trait. And he was now being mentored by two former Princes, both of whom had body counts of their own. But he still recalled what Dumbledore and Scrimgeour had said as well. That killing  _changes_  a wizard. And Harry feared that such changes might be irrevocable.

"My compass ... should relax. Killing Tiberius Nott wouldn't help Theo at all. It might even make things worse for him ... and for me. Anyway, I'll ... think about what you said. Thanks Neville."

Neville smiled and returned to his eggs and toast. A few minutes later, Harry shuddered involuntarily and looked around the room.

"What?" Neville asked.

"I dunno. Felt weird for a second. Like that Muggle expression. ' _Somebody just walked over my grave._ '"

Neville made a face. "Muggles have weird expressions."

Harry sighed. "I suppose so."

The two were silent for a few more minutes. Then, Neville grew thoughtful. "So are you going to try to stay friends with Theo now? No matter what the cost?"

"Absolutely. We'll try to stay discreet about it, I suppose, but I don't turn my back on my friends. And you?"

Neville said nothing for a while, and Harry studied him casually. "I dunno," Neville said. "I mean it's awful what happened to him. But when all is said and done, Theo's still the son of a Death Eater. Who knows? Maybe Theo has that kind of evil inside himself. You'd expect that from someone who was raised by Tiberius Nott, wouldn't you?"

Harry bit on a piece of toast and chewed it slowly. He felt a strange coldness creeping into the pit of his stomach. "Maybe?" he finally said noncommitally.

"I mean, yes, I do owe Theo for telling me about what Remembralls did back in First Year. But was he really helping me out of the kindness of his heart? Or was he trying to manipulate me somehow? Maybe I should wait and see how everyone else reacts before I commit to staying his friend. What do you think?"

Harry swallowed and looked over Neville's shoulder at the clock on the wall. It read  _9:05_. The Ultimate Sanction was in effect, and it had already twisted Neville's feelings and emotions.

"If that's your decision, Neville, I respect it," Harry said in a quiet voice. But his inner voice said something very different.

" _Death Eaters,"_  he thought furiously. " _I really_ _hate_ _Death Eaters."_

* * *

_**40 DAYS UNTIL AZKABAN** _


	2. Prelude (Hermione & Blaise)

**Chapter 2: HERMIONE GRANGER AND THE REVENGE OF THE BLACK HAND**

__**28 June 1993  
Amerigo Vespucci Airport  
Florence, Italy**

As the jet touched down smoothly, Hermione Granger smiled as she contemplated the wonders of Muggledom that most of her classmates could not imagine. Two and a half hours from London to Florence via Muggle conveyance! The only thing wizards had that would have been both faster and safer was an International Portkey which, according to Blaise, made most travelers violently ill in the aftermath. After two years at Hogwarts, the young witch was still continually amazed at the potential of magic, but she was still a Muggleborn at heart, and her magical knowledge only heightened her appreciation of what Muggles could achieve without such benefits. She'd mentioned to Lavender Brown that she and her parents be spending a few weeks this summer in Florence, and the other girl had actually asked how long it would take to travel by steamboat. Lavender (who was highly intelligent herself and well-versed on magical matters) had been aware of the existence of "planes" but seemed to think that Muggles were still limited to World War I era biplanes, and she was almost disbelieving when Hermione explained the entire concept of modern jets and the fact that every major city had an airport through which thousands of Muggles passed every day to travel the world.

Beside her, Dan and Emma Granger chatted amiably with each other, but there was a slight undercurrent of tension between them. The two dentists lived quite comfortably and were experienced travelers, and they had even been to Tuscany twice before, though this was the first time with their daughter in tow. However, this was the first time either of them would be staying in a magical home, and while Blaise reassured Hermione that the Countess Zabini's villa just outside Florence was "Muggle-friendly," she knew that this would be her parents' first real exposure to the lifestyle their only child had chosen to embrace. Indeed, the Grangers had already gotten an unpleasant exposure to the magical world after Hermione had spent two days the previous week in bed rather violently ill – the expected but still disagreeable side effect of drinking the Italian Language Potion. The girl was now completely fluent in Italian (with the mildly annoying exception of Italian words which did not come into usage until after 1932, the last time the potion had been updated), but her reaction to the Educational Potion was still rather alarming to the two medically-trained Muggles.

After disembarking, the Grangers made their way through customs and on to the baggage area where they quickly spotted the hulking form of Gunther Hagrid, the Countess's manservant and chauffeur, who was holding a cardboard sign that said "GRANGERS." Hermione had been somewhat surprised to learn from Blaise that Gunther was a cousin to Rubeus Hagrid, the Hogwarts groundskeeper. Other than their unusual size and bulk, the two looked nothing alike. Though huge and imposing, Gunther was not nearly as big as his cousin, and where Hagrid was notable for his shaggy black mane of hair and his incredibly thick beard, Gunther had close-cropped red hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. Gunther never attended Hogwarts and apparently had no magic of his own, but his eyes gleamed with an intelligence and cunning that spoke of years spent learning from the School of Hard Knocks, especially when compared to the dreaminess Hermione found in the eyes of the gentle and somewhat naive half-giant.

Standing next to Gunther was her friend Blaise who smiled and waved as soon as he saw her. The boy was in casual yet stylish Muggle attire: a blue silk shirt and khaki trousers. As the Grangers drew near, he held out his arms in a welcoming gesture.

" _Buongiorno!_  Welcome to Florence!" He then proffered his hand to Dan Granger who shook it firmly. When Emma offered hers, he took it and gave her a hand-kiss. Finally, he gave Hermione a warm hug. "If you'll come this way, we'll get your baggage and head for the car. We need to make a quick stop to register Hermione's wand with the Italian Ministry since she's underage, and then we'll head to the villa."

The ride to the Ministry offices was uneventful save for the surprise the Grangers registered when the Countess's vintage Bentley turned out to be bigger on the inside than the outside. On the way there, Blaise politely answered the Grangers' questions about magical and Muggle Florence. Though the Countess enjoyed what Muggles would describe as a jet-setting lifestyle, her villa in Tuscany was among her favorite homes and she spent a good portion of each year there. Indeed, since Blaise had started his magical education, he had spent the majority of his summers in Florence on account of Magical Italy's comparatively lax views on underage magic. Unlike Britain's blanket ban on all magic performed by minors, Italy simply placed a Charm on all wands held by minors which would prevent them from functioning at all if directly observed by any Muggles. The Italian Trace would also record all spells performed while the minor was in public. There was no danger of a Muggle directly witnessing underage magic, and any underage spells cast otherwise would be logged and evaluated to see if the spell either threatened the Statute of Secrecy or otherwise had been cast with malicious, reckless, or criminal intent.

"That actually seems a much more sensible way of doing things than what the British Ministry does," said Dan Granger. "Why don't the British do it that way?"

Blaise shrugged. "So long as the Statute of Secrecy is honored, the ICW grants each member nation the right to monitor and control underage magic however its government wishes. My cynical theory is that the British approach – a blanket ban that can be overcome for minors whose parents can pay exorbitant fees for summer lessons – is just a way for the Ministry to bilk rich Purebloods who want their children to remain advantaged over Halfbloods and Muggleborns."

"That's very cynical indeed," said Emma. The boy smiled.

"I am Italian,  _Signora_ Granger. We're all cynical when it comes to government action."

* * *

The procedure for registering Hermione's wand was swift, surprisingly so. The bureaucrat in charge of the process was haughty and dismissive of the "English tourist  _streghe_ " for all of eight seconds before Blaise introduced himself as the son of " _la Contessa Zabini_ " at which point he nearly tripped and fell down to the floor in his haste to expedite the process.

The group arrived at the Villa Zabini just in time for lunch. The Countess herself (fashionable as ever in a floral sun dress) met the group on the front steps with a florid welcome offered in English with a heavy Italian accent. She then kissed all three Grangers on the cheek and congratulated Emma Granger on marrying "such a handsome and virile-looking man" as Dan, a comment which caused Dan to blush, Blaise and Hermione to wince, and Emma to respond with the least convincing smile Hermione had ever seen on her face.

Over a luncheon out on the poolside terrace, the Countess laid out her proposed itinerary for the Grangers over the next three weeks, one involving trips to museums, vineyards, spas, and other attractions for the adults while Hermione spent her time with Blaise and his magical tutors while also exploring Magical Italy with Blaise, Gunther, and the Countess herself. Left unsaid was that Hermione would also be spending time with Blaise's Occlumency tutor for a crash course in a borderline illegal discipline that carried a significant risk to her mental health. There were some things, after all, that one's Muggle parents simply didn't need to now. Regardless, the Grangers accepted the Countess's proposed itinerary, but they did want to spend some time with their daughter, and the Countess reassured them that there would be plenty of time for "family excursions."

The Countess also explained that Mr. and Mrs. Granger would be staying in the villa's east wing, while Hermione would be staying in the west wing where Blaise and the Countess's own rooms were located. The villa had been extensively modernized after the Countess had purchased it, but there remained problems with integrating magic and technology. Consequently, the east wing had Muggle amenities such as electric lights and cable television while the west wing lacked such accouterments but replaced them with things like magical lighting and heating and, of course, house elves to attend to the needs of magical guests. The Countess glossed over the topic of "house elves" smoothly in a way that left the Grangers the impression that they were paid servants, and Hermione said nothing to disabuse them of that notion.

After lunch, Blaise showed Hermione to her suite in the west wing. Once inside, the witch finally felt free to talk.

"Right," she began, "what are we going to do about poor Theo?"

"Ah, you've heard. From Harry, I suppose?"

"Of course," she replied while sitting down on the bed. "From what Harry wrote, I shouldn't be affected by this Ultimate Sanction nonsense since I'm Muggle-born. Do  _you_  feel any differently about Theo?"

Blaise shook his head no. "The Zabinis are not a part of the Wizengamot. Mother has British citizenship but beyond that has no oaths that bind her or me to the government. I shouldn't be directly affected." He sat down in a chair facing the bed.

"What about  _indirectly_  affected?" she asked with just a faint hint of suspicion.

Blaise shrugged. "Anyone not directly affected by the Sanction who maintains a public friendship with Theo will eventually draw the hostility of everyone who  _is_  affected. Theo and Harry both apparently know that. I assume Theo will be fine if we maintain a discreet relationship with him. I'm sure he'd rather have allies who can actually help him under the table than friends who are stuck in the same miserable boat at him."

Hermione looked doubtful at that. Blaise sighed.

"And of course," he continued, "being a  _Gryffindor_ , you are more inclined to make a grand gesture of friendship even if your own house turns on you as a result."

"I've considered the matter since I got Harry's letter. Out of my Gryffindor year-mates, the only ones likely to be affected are Lavender, Ron, and possibly Jim, though he might be immune since his mother is a Hogwarts teacher. I want to stay friends with Theo, truly I do. And as a Gryffindor, I shouldn't be afraid of what others say about that."

"But...?" Blaise prompted.

She sighed in frustration. " _But_  I saw last year first hand how brutally my fellow Gryffindors can turn on someone who offends their sensibilities, and I expect those affected will be at least as hostile towards Theo and any who stick with them as they were towards the Boy-Who-Lived after he was exposed as a Parselmouth. It's ... an intimidating prospect."

"So we'll take it one day at a time and see what happens." He stood up once more. "In the meantime, come on. I'll give you a tour of the villa. I imagine you're just dying to know where the Zabini library is."

The way Hermione's eyes lit up with excitement showed how right he was.

* * *

_**29 June 1993** _

The next day Hermione, Blaise, and the Grangers made use of the villa's swimming pool for most of the morning. Then, after lunch, Gunther delivered the Grangers to Florence's historic city-center for sight-seeing before conveying Hermione and Blaise to a meeting with Blaise's Occlumency tutor. Hermione was somewhat surprised to note that the meeting was at Il Duomo de Firenze, the mother church of the Archdiocese of Florence and one of the most famous cathedrals in the world. She was even more surprised when Blaise finally revealed the identity of his tutor.

"His name is Monsignor Guiseppe Lucardi. Among his other duties, he is a Chaplain of His Holiness, a Deacon in the Order of St. Simon Magus, and the highest ranking spiritual and temporal representative of the Catholic Church among Florence's Catholic wizards and witches. He oversaw my confirmation when I was 7 and began instructing me in Occlumency one week later." He paused at Hermione's expression. "Is that a problem?"

"No, no. I was just ... caught off guard. I remember us discussing the existence of wizards and witches who were still staunchly Catholic last Fall, but I hadn't really thought about it since then. I'm ... not particularly religious, but I promise I'll be respectful."

Blaise smiled. "I appreciate that. And to be honest, I don't consider myself particularly religious either. I reckon there's a much higher percentage of 'Cafeteria Catholics' among wizards than Muggles. After all, we can actually perform our  _own_  miracles."

Soon, the two were inside the cathedral and sitting comfortably in Monsignor Lucardi's private chambers. To Hermione's amazement, said quarters were only a small part of a sizeable complex full of wizards and witches dressed in priestly cassocks and nuns' habits, all of which somehow fit inside a small broom closet on the cathedral's second floor. The Monsignor, who gave every appearance of being a kindly village priest even though he was obviously an official nearly on par with the British Minister of Magic in importance, welcomed Hermione and Blaise and escorted them both to a sitting room. An house elf in tiny monks' robes soon appeared bearing the afternoon's  _merende_ : a platter of Nutella sandwiches and some Italian creme sodas, plus a cappuccino for the priest – the Italian answer to British tea time).

"I am pleased,  _Signorina_  Granger, that you have already availed yourself of the Italian Language potion. I myself took the English potion many years ago, but it turned out to be the  _American_  English potion, and I am informed that I speak English with an alarmingly thick Texas drawl. If young Blaise has not yet informed you, your Italian carries a slight but charming Venetian accent."

Hermione chuckled. "Thank you, Monsignor. I have noticed though that I still hear some words as Italian rather than English, such as  _Signorina_  just now. Why is that?"

"A quirk of the potion, my dear. Certain random Italian words you already understood prior to taking the potion still sound Italian.  _Signorina_.  _Buongiorno_.  _Rigatoni._ Etc. But enough of our idle chit-chat. You have finished your  _merende_  and I have but an hour before I must return to my duties. Blaise wishes me to examine your Occlumency and give you advice on how to proceed."

Hermione nodded as the priest produced a wand from the sleeve of his cassock which he then pointed at the young girl.

" _ **LEGILIMENS.**_ "

Blaise sat quietly and looked back and forth between his friend and mentor. Hermione furrowed her brow in concentration as she sought to detect the older man's psychic intrusion and then expel him. Lucardi's own expression was placid and gave no sign as to whether he was experiencing any difficulties or even whether he was doing anything at all. Finally, after a long thirty seconds, he looked away. Hermione slumped a bit in her chair and took a deep breath.

"You did quite well, my child. You are on the way to developing rudimentary Occlumency shields, though the process will take many months to perfect as I'm sure you know." The Monsignor hesitated. "Tell me,  _Signorina_ Granger. What is your purpose in studying this art? Do you wish to truly master the powers of Occlumency? Or simply protect your secrets from prying minds?"

Hermione hesitated. "Honestly, the latter. I've ... had the experience of losing my secrets and those of my friends to someone with Leglimency. Those friends and I nearly died as a result. I don't wish that to happen again if I can avoid it. But as for the higher powers of Occlumency? If possible, I would like to wait until I am older and more mature before tampering with my own emotions. I've ... heard stories of how badly that can turn out for some people."

Lucardi took a slow sip of his cappuccino. " _Signorina_  Granger, I wish to try something. But before I do, I must ask for your consent. From my brief intrusion into your mind, I suspect that you may have a somewhat rare and valuable gift. But the process for confirming and developing that gift is ... well, somewhat painful. I assure you that it will cause no lasting harm beyond a headache which can be alleviated with a healing potion. Will you consent to my investigation?"

Hermione glanced at Blaise who simply shrugged, then she turned back to Lucardi. "Yes sir. Please proceed."

Lucardi nodded and then called for a house elf who he referred to respectfully as Brother Lolo. He politely asked the robed elf to fetch a Headache Curing Potion which the elf quickly procured. Then, Lucardi raised his wand again and looked into Hermione's eyes once more. This time, he narrowed his eyes and spoke more forcefully, almost angrily in fact. " _ **LEGILIMENS!**_ " Immediately, Hermione tensed and gritted her teeth. It was a struggle to maintain eye contact, and after about ten seconds, she finally cried out in anguish. Immediately, the priest released his spell and then quickly handed the potion over to the shaking girl who took it gratefully.

"My apologies,  _Signorina_ , for your pain.  _But_  it was worthwhile. I am pleased to inform you that you have the potential for natural Occlumency shields which can be developed very quickly, albeit through an unpleasant and painful process."

"Wait," interrupted Blaise. "Hermione is a natural Occlumens? But I've been helping her, and she hasn't been advancing any further than I did when I started out."

"Not a natural  _Occlumens_ , my boy. That is a  _truly_  a rare blessing. Not one wizard in 10,000 gains the full benefits of Occlumency without considerable training, a rarity on par with being a natural Legilimens or a Metamorphmagus or a born Animagus. Natural Occlumency  _shields_ , however, are far more common and are found in approximately one out of every twelve wizards or witches. These shields are dormant until triggered in response to pain-inducing Legilimency, but once active, they will detect and defend against even the most subtle forms of that art."

He turned his attention back to Hermione. "In your case,  _Signorina_  Granger, after just a few seconds of exposure to an intentionally painful Legilimency attack, I could sense rudimentary shields beginning to fall into place. If you wish to avail yourself of this admittedly painful technique, I believe that by the end of the Summer, if not sooner, you can acquire defensive shields comparable to those of a third-level Occlumens, though you would not, of course, gain any of the other, more sophisticated benefits of Occlumency until you make a formal study of the art."

Even as she massaged her temples while the pain receded, Hermione seemed excited. "But that would be wonderful! I'd be happy to wait until I'm older to become an Occlumens, assuming I ever did, if I could just gain the protective benefits now."

Lucardi smiled. "Then it is settled. Blaise has informed me that you will be in Florence for three weeks. You will meet with me three times a week during your time here for one hour during each session. And I must warn you,  _Signorina_  Granger _–_ you will be taking a great many Headache Relieving Potions in the coming weeks."

Hermione gulped ... and then nodded affirmatively.

* * *

After another twenty minutes of painful Legilimency invasion – and two more pain relief potions – Hermione and Blaise left the cathedral and joined Gunther in the Countess's Bentley. They would be meeting the Grangers and the Countess for a bit of sightseeing followed by dinner at one of Florence's most fashionable restaurants.

As the Bentley pulled out onto the busy Florentine streets, a black SUV which had been parked further down the street slowly pulled out to follow it.

* * *

_**7 July 1993  
4:00 p.m.** _

It was a late afternoon, and Blaise and Hermione were together in a small study in the east wing work on their Charms homework. Presently, they were working on a Third Year conjuration Charm that theoretically would create a small cloud of colorful butterflies. Thus far, Blaise had only managed a "flock" of caterpillars that would materialize in mid-air and then drop to the table with an audible splat. Undaunted, Hermione checked the wand movements depicted in their textbook and then waved her wand in the air.

" _ **MARIPOSUS.**_ " There was a flash of light from the tip of Hermione's wand, followed by a stream of twenty or so brilliant multicolored butterflies which fluttered around the room at her direction. Hermione's eyes shone as she watched the display. Blaise was equally entranced, his brief and tiny surge of jealousy over Hermione's success forgotten. Then, they were both surprised by a gasp from behind them.

"Wow," said Dan Granger with an excited grin on his face. Startled, Hermione lost her concentration, and the butterflies instantly faded from view. "Oh, I'm sorry," Dan said disappointedly. "Was that my fault?"

"It's okay, Dad. You just startled me. Let me try again." Hermione waved her wand and spoke the incantation once more. Blaise started to interrupt, but he was surprised when the stream of butterflies appeared once more. Dan laughed in appreciation. Then, from further down the hall, another voice called out.

"Dan? Where did you get off to?" It was Emma Granger.

"In here, Em!" he called out excitedly without taking his eyes off the gleaming butterflies. Then, he glanced over to Blaise with a hint of embarrassment. "Sorry. It's just ... we haven't really had a chance to see Hermione do any magic since before she first went to Hogwarts."

At that second, Emma Granger followed her husband into the room. Instantly, the butterflies popped out of existence. Surprised, Hermione tried the Charm again but nothing happened.

"It's the Italian Trace," said Blaise. "You can't cast spells with your wand while directly observed by Muggles."

"I'm a Muggle," said Dan in confusion. "Her spell worked fine in front of me."

"Apparently, Dr. Granger – Mr. Dr. Granger, that is – you must actually be a squib."

"I beg your pardon," the man replied in confusion. Hermione sighed softly.

"A squib is the term used for someone without magic but who is descended from a wizarding family. On your side, we're descended from the Dagworth-Grangers, who are a somewhat prominent family of British wizards."

"Really?" he said excitedly. "We should write to them and let them know."

"I already have, Dad," Hermione said while looking down at the table. "They're, um ..."

"They're bigots, sir," Blaise interrupted. "Or at least their Head of House is. In a lot of Pureblooded families, especially in Britain, it is considered a mark of extreme shame to produce squib offspring, and most families cut ties." The boy hesitated. "Literally so, in some families."

"Oh," said Dan as he absorbed what the boy had implied. "Well then, what does it mean that I'm a squib other than a family connection that doesn't seem to matter?"

"Well," said Blaise thoughtfully. "First of all, you don't count as a Muggle for things like Muggle-Repelling Charms or the Italian version of the Trace, so you can watch Hermione do magic while you're here. Back home you could visit Hogwarts or Hogsmeade with no trouble. You can drink magical potions that either would do nothing to a Muggle or perhaps even be harmful. If you have  _enough_ latent magic, you can activate and use enchanted objects like brooms, though it would be unusual to see that in a squib several generations removed from the last wizarding ancestor." He smiled. "And anyway, I would not recommend asking Hermione to teach you to ride a broom. She's not a fan."

Hermione sniffed disdainfully. Her views on flying broomsticks were well-known among her friends.

"So," said Emma in an odd voice. "Dan can watch Hermione do magic, but if I'm here it will just mess things up?"

"Emma," Dan began.

"No, no," she interrupted. "It's okay. I'll leave you to it. See you at dinner." Then, she turned and quickly left the room.

"I, um, I'd probably better go after her," said Dan sheepishly before leaving himself. Hermione watched them go with a sad expression.

"You okay?" Blaise said.

"Yes. No. I don't know." She turned to him. "There are times, Blaise, when I envy Purebloods. You've grown up in this world, and I suppose everyone one you care about is a part of it. I feel like I'm drifting away from my parents, and I don't see what I can do to stop it. And part of me isn't sure if I should even try."

Blaise said nothing and simply returned to his notes.

* * *

_**9 July 1993  
3:30 a.m.** _

Hermione shot up in her bed gasping for air as if she'd awoken from a terrible nightmare. She whispered the word  _Lumos_  and in response the bedside lamp came on, softly illuminating her room. She studied the bedroom for several seconds as if to remind herself of where she was. Then, she rose and went to the en suite bathroom to splash some cold water on her face. She looked up at her reflection in the mirror and stared at it silently for a long time.

Then, the witch returned to the bedroom and sat down at her writing desk. Pulling out a notebook and pen, she turned to a clean page and made a "to do" list for herself. Once complete, she opened her Charms textbook and began taking notes.

* * *

__**9 July 1993  
2:00 p.m.  
The office of Monsignor Lucardi**

" _ **LEGILIMENS!**_ " the Monsignor barked out angrily as if to intimidate Hermione into losing focus. If that was his aim, it was unsuccessful, as the girl simply stared back at him almost serenely. After several seconds, Lucardi broke contact and sat back in his chair in surprise.

"My sincerest congratulations,  _Signorina_. Your Occlumency shields now appear fully formed. I do not believe I could penetrate your thoughts with anything less than a sustained assault over the course of several hours, and even that might not be enough. Well done!"

"That's it?" Blaise practically spluttered. "But Monsignor, it's been barely two weeks. I thought you said that it would take a few  _months_  for Hermione to develop shields."

"I did," the man replied evenly. "But this is an imprecise process, my son. Remember,  _Signorina_  Granger did not develop these shields through conscious effort but rather as an autonomic response brought on by physical pain. That she did so this quickly is remarkable but still within the scope of what is possible for those blessed with her aptitude. Indeed, there have been a few reported cases of wizards developing these defensive shields after but a single Legilimency attack."

Blaise nodded somewhat dubiously, while Hermione was relaxed and confident, as if her success had never been in doubt. Later, however, as Gunther was driving the pair back to the villa, the witch suddenly seemed pensive. Blaise studied his friend carefully and with a hint of suspicion.

"What?" Hermione finally asked.

"What do you mean ' _what_ '?" the boy replied.

"You've been staring at me for several minutes now."

"Sorry. But you seem tense for some reason. I'd have thought you'd be happy about mastering Occlumency so quickly."

She huffed. "Blaise, I haven't  _mastered_  Occlumency. I just have very good natural shields. My Occlumency is nowhere near as good as yours and probably never will be. Anyway, not to change the subject, but I think we should put a support group together to help Theo deal with any problems that arise from all that Ultimate Sanction nonsense. I've decided that punishing a child by mind-controlling half the country into hating him is horrible, and I'm going to do something about it."

Blaise actually did a double-take. "A ... support group? What?" he sputtered. "Okay, first of all, you actually did just completely change the subject. It wasn't even subtle. And second, what are you talking about with a  _support group_?! I told you we would need to be discreet about helping Theo!"

"No,  _you_  need to be discreet because you're in Slytherin House and that's how your house operates. ' _Gryffindors Charge In_ ,' as they say."

"Hermione," Blaise said, "the people who say that  _don't_  mean it as a compliment."

"Perhaps, but that doesn't mean I can't embrace the stereotype. Now I'm thinking of getting all the Muggleborns together for a start and then sounding out Halfbloods who were Muggle-raised. Would you be willing to help me put a list together even if you don't want to be on it officially? Also, we'll need a name for our organization. What do you think we should call ourselves? The Society for the Prevention of Abusive Magic? No wait. The acronym for that is SPAM. That would just be silly."

Blaise simply gaped at the girl, his mouth opening and closing without any sound coming out. Hermione simply smiled at him and then glanced out the rear window, her smile fading as she did. After a few seconds, she turned back around and knocked on the window separating the driver and the rear of the car. Gunther rolled the window down.

"Yes, Miss 'Ermione?"

"Gunther, I couldn't help but notice that there's a black SUV following us. Unless I'm mistaken, this is the third time we've been followed by the same SUV. Is it something we should be worried about?"

Gunther checked his rearview mirror. "Yes, Miss. I t'ink it might just be. Hold on." Suddenly Hermione and Blaise were flung about in their seats as the Bentley sped up and then abruptly swerved left down a side alley. Seconds later, there was a flash of light next to the car and some trash cans exploded. Blaise cursed loudly.

"That was spellfire! Who's shooting at us?!"

"I reckon it's the Black Hand, Mister B!" Gunther exclaimed. "I told the Countess we shoulda gone to Greece instead!" He began to swerve in an effort to avoid the incoming spellfire. "Both of ya get down!"

Hermione grabbed Blaise and yanked him down to the seat. Barely a second later, a spell hit the rear window and shattered it, causing shards of glass to drop down onto the pair. Instantly, Blaise popped back up and tried to cast a blasting spell at the pursuing vehicle. Nothing happened. Blaise's eyes widened in shock.

"They've got Muggles with them! We can't use magic to defend ourselves!" Then, he felt a jerk as Hermione grabbed him by the collar of his shirt again and pulled him back down before another spell came through the broken window. The sound of spellfire was soon joined by another equally unwanted sound: gunfire.

"What's the Black Hand and why are they after us?!" Hermione yelled over the noise.

"Now is not the time, Hermione!" Blaise yelled back.

"Can you guarantee we'll have another?!"

He grimaced angrily at his friend. "Okay, fine. To greatly oversimplify things ... the Black hand is, well, the Wizarding Mafia."

Hermione fixed him with a disapproving glare. " _Of course_  it is! How silly of me not to have expected it on my very first trip to Italy! And why is the Wizarding Mafia after us?"

"Just me. And it's not the whole Black Hand, just the Montessi family."

"DUCK!" Gunther bellowed. Then, he somehow twisted almost his entire body around (without letting go of the wheel or taking his foot off the gas) to fire off an automatic pistol over the two children's heads and out the back window towards the pursuers. Hermione gave out a startled squeal while Blaise cupped his hands over his ears to block out the noise.

"Crap," Gunther muttered while turning back to face the front. "Bulletproof windows. Probably magic." Then, he accelerated, and the Bentley careened through the back streets of Florence, knocking crates and trash cans aside wildly as it went.

"So what do these Montessi people want with you?!" Hermione asked, refusing to let go of her questions.

Blaise huffed. "Salvatore Montessi was my mother's fourth husband and also the  _capo di tutti capi_ of the Florentine Black Hand! And because of the circumstances and timing of his completely natural and non-suspicious death, I'm set to inherit his position in the organization ...  _if_  I make it alive to the age of twenty-five! Something all my Montessi cousins would rather not see happen!"

Hermione stared at her friend. "You're literally the only Italian wizard I know! And you're mob-connected! And you complain about  _me_  fulfilling stereotypes?!"

Before Blaise could respond, there was another blast of spellfire that blew out one of the rear tires. With a snarl, Gunther swerved hard, and the Bentley twisted around so that it came to a rest with the driver's side of the car facing away from the pursuers. Then, he yelled back to his two charges while putting a fresh clip into his gun.

"Get out on my side and run!" he bellowed. "Keep your heads down! I'll cover you as long as I can!" Then, he jumped out and crouched behind the front of the car before opening fire on the pursuers while Blaise and Hermione darted out of the back and ran down the street. Behind them, they heard an exchange of gunfire followed by a yell of pain from Gunther. The two students glanced back in time to see the driver stagger back with blood pouring from bullet holes in his chest and from a thick gash in his neck. Then, Gunther Hagrid fell to the ground, seemingly lifeless.

"GUNTHER!" Blaise screamed, but then Hermione grabbed him by the arm and started pulling.

"Come on! We've got to get away from here!"

The two ran down the street as fast as they could, certain that bullets and curses would soon be following. Half a block down was a small church they chose as a sanctuary and hiding place. Unfortunately, the doors were locked. Hermione looked around wildly. The Montessi killers had not yet made it down the alleyway and the street was otherwise empty of witnesses. " _ **ALOHOMORA**_ ," she whispered urgently, and the doors opened. Once they were inside, they found the church to be deserted on a Friday afternoon.

"We should split up," Blaise said breathlessly. "It's me they're after."

"Good idea," Hermione said before turning and running up a nearby set of stairs. Blaise stared after her open-mouthed in surprise.

"So much for Gryffindor courage, I guess," he muttered to himself.

Then, he ran towards a door leading to the back of the church. But before he could reach it, he heard an angry voice call out " _ **COLLOPORTUS**_ " and the door slammed shut and locked itself. He turned around just in time to be hit with an Expelliarmus, and his wand flew from his pocket into the waiting hand of his chief pursuer. There were three in all. The lead figure he knew well – Enrico Montessi, Salvatore's oldest nephew who Blaise knew to be a wizard. The other two held guns instead of wands, instantly marking them as Muggles. Blaise raised his head defiantly.

"Hello, Cousin Enrico. How have you been?" he said condescendingly.

"Much better now that I have renewed our acquaintance,  _bastardo_ , for the few minutes left to it."

"You think you can kill the Don's heir and just carry on as usual, Enrico? The other families don't care for assassination of their peers. More importantly,  _Zabinis never forget or forgive._ "

"I'll take my chances, boy. Though you'll actually die at the hands of my Muggle friends here." Montessi sneered. "You don't  _deserve_  the honor of dying by a wand." He gestured and the two thugs stepped forward and pointed their guns at the boy. As one, they pulled their triggers.

_Click._

The two men looked puzzled and then shook their guns, both of which seemed to have misfired at once. Meanwhile, upstairs in a balcony, hidden behind a chair, Hermione Granger kept her wand pointed at the men while softly but urgently whispering an incantation – " _ **MERGIT FLAMMARUM**_ "– over and over again. When the guns failed, Enrico Montessi snarled and held his own wand aloft.

" _ **HOMENUM REVELIO!**_ " he cried, and a pulse of magical energy shot from his wandtip in every direction. When it struck the concealed witch, there was a flash of light from her position and an audible "ding." Montessi looked up to the balcony and lashed out with a Blasting Curse which Hermione only barely dodged.

But before he could fire again, a blast of a different sort struck the church. The stained glass windows nearest Montessi and his men exploded inwards as a bloody but unbowed Gunther Hagrid crashed through to land on the floor near them. His shirt was ragged and bloodstained, but the exposed skin showed no signs of the bullet wounds he had taken. Gunther rushed forward and punched the nearest attacker in the side of the head so hard that the man's jaw shattered with an audible crack. The thug went down instantly. The other gunman ran forward and struck Gunther across the head with his useless weapon. It had absolutely no effect beyond annoying the Gunther who responded by backhanding the shocked Muggle with such force that he flew across the room and into the wall. The assassin hit so hard that a large hunk of plaster from the wall fell to the ground with him, and like his compatriot, the Muggle didn't get back up.

Now alone, Enrico aimed his wand at the towering man. " _ **LACERO!**_ " A red wave of cutting force struck Gunther on his chest with enough force to kill a lesser man. After staggering back a step, though, Gunther just snarled and advanced, his gaping wound quickly closing up as he moved. Now truly frightened, Enrico tried to use the Killing Curse, but just as he stammered out the incantation, Gunther grabbed him by his wrist and jerked his arm straight up. The green light of the Killing Curse shot harmlessly into the ceiling.

Gunther growled again. Then, he opened his mouth ... and  _kept opening it_  until his jaws were more than six inches apart revealing jagged rocky teeth inside. Enrico started babbling in fear as Gunther forced the man's wand  _and his whole hand_  into the driver's gaping mouth.

**CHOMP!**

Enrico Montessi screamed and dropped to the ground while clutching the bleeding stump where his wand hand used to be. Gunther took a step back and began chewing ... loudly. After a few seconds, he spat out several pieces of broken wood.

"Elm and ...  _unicorn hair_!" Gunther said as he wiped Montessi's blood from his face. "Interestin' choice, Ricky."

Blaise ran over to recover his wand and then joined Gunther. If he had any concerns about what the big man had done, they didn't show. Instead, all of his attention was on Enrico.

"Go back to your family, Montessi. Tell all of your kin that House Zabini has taken your wand and the hand that held it. Tell them  _that_  is full extent of our mercy. Come after me again and my family will scourge you from the Italian peninsula."

With that threat, Blaise and Gunther turned towards the door only to see a pale and shaking Hermione waiting for them. Her attention was on Gunther, whose face had returned to its normal dimensions but who was now liberally coated with his enemy's blood.

"Are you okay, Hermione?" Blaise said with concern.

"I'm fine. I'm alright. It's just ..." She looked up at Gunther and reflexively shuddered. "I'm sorry. I didn't ... I wasn't expecting ... all that."

Gunther smiled wanly. "It's okay, little miss. No one ever does."

She nodded and the trio quickly left the church.

* * *

_**Later at the Villa Zabini...** _

Hermione and Blaise sat at a small table in the sun room. Gunther had washed his hands and face of blood as best he could, and then he brought two glasses of milk (to which a shot of Amaretto had been added) to fortify the two children. The trio had commandeered Montessi's SUV to get back to the villa, and along the way, Hermione had explained in response to Blaise's questions that she had hidden herself in the balcony so that she could use magic without the Muggles seeing her and thus neutralizing her wand. Specifically, she had prevented their assailants' guns from working through an innovative use of the Fire Suppression Charm, which temporarily prevented all forms of combustion including the discharge of firearms. Other than that, the girl was subdued. While Hermione had maintained great poise in the face of wizards and Mafiosi trying to murder her friend, it seemed watching Gunther Hagrid bite a man's hand off was a bridge too far.

"Well, then. If'n you two 'er okay, I needs to change me shirt. I've got to pick up the Countess and yuir Mum and Da' before too long, and I can't look all..." He glanced down at his blood-drenched shirt which looked as if he'd worn it to an abbatoir. Then, he nodded to Hermione and left the sun room. Hermione took a sip of her fortified milk. Her hands were shaking.

"Are you okay?" Blaise asked again. "Your kind of worrying me. For someone with natural Occlumency shields, you seem ... highly emotional right now."

Her eyes darted to his. "Blaise, I don't have the emotional control powers that you and Harry do. Maybe no one can read my mind and discover what I've seen today, but that doesn't make it any less... traumatic." She leaned forward onto the table.

"I mean, seriously, when you said you had secrets that you didn't want to share, I was thinking about ' _who you might have a crush on_ ' or ' _why are you so absurdly good-looking'_  or ..." She paused and blushed as she realized what she'd just said. Blaise's own eyes widened in surprise, and he smiled despite himself. Then, Hermione shook her head and forged onward. "But I  _was not_  expecting you to be the secret Godfather-in-training of the Wizarding Mafia. Nor was I expecting to find out that your butler is ... whatever your butler is!"

"Gunther's both a servant and a friend," Blaise replied in a calming voice. "He's nothing for you to be afraid of."

"HE BIT OFF A GUY'S HAND!" Hermione shrieked before clapping her hand over her mouth. Blaise rubbed his eyes tiredly. The two sat quietly for a minute or so. Then, Gunther returned, still buttoning up his clean shirt. He coughed diplomatically.

"I'm heading out. Um, Mr. B? If'n you think it would help and you trust the young miss ta keep it a secret, I wouldn't mind if'n you told 'er about ... well, about me." He glanced at Hermione and blushed slightly as if embarrassed over his own existence. Then, he quietly left. Hermione looked over to Blaise expectantly. The boy sighed deeply.

"Okay, here it is. Gunther is half-troll. That gives him enhanced strength, incredible levels of regeneration, and, well, the ability to eat nearly anything he can fit into his exceptionally wide mouth. Needless to say, that makes him an excellent bodyguard as you saw today."

Hermione stared at him for a full three seconds.

"Half... troll?"

"Half-troll."

She stared some more. "And he's the cousin of Rubeus Hagrid from Hogwarts, who is half-giant."

"Yes," he replied while taking another sip of milk.

She stared even longer. "So there were two brothers named Hagrid and one married a giant and the other married a troll?"

Blaise actually laughed at that. "No, Hermione, marriage never entered into it. Come on now. You're an educated young Muggleborn. I assume you had some form of sex education, right?"

The witch nodded. "My last year of Muggle schooling had a health unit that explained the basics."

"Okay, then. Consider the following facts. The average adult male wizard is around six feet tall. The average female giant is between forty and seventy feet tall. Given that disparity, how exactly do you think that sexual reproduction between the two species could possibly work?"

The question astonished her. In the nearly two years that Hermione had known that Hagrid was a half-giant, she'd never considered the matter. "With ... difficulty?"

Blaise laughed again. "Bit of an understatement there. Gunther and his cousin Rubeus, like their ... broodmates, I suppose, were not the product of mixed-species relationships but rather of illicit magical cross-breeding experiments. In the 1920's, there was a dark witch – a would-be Dark Lady, in fact – who called herself Lady Echidna. Her big plan was to create an army of human-creature hybrids that were compelled to obey her will. She was brought to justice fairly quickly by an ICW taskforce and is famous today mainly for her connection to the dark wizard who served as her lieutenant before he abandoned her when the ICW showed up: Gellert Grindelwald."

Hermione gasped at the mention of Voldemort's sole rival for the title of "Worst Dark Lord of the 20th Century."

"So  _that_  was why Armando Dippet hated Hagrid so much. It wasn't just bigotry against a human-giant hybrid. He believed that Hagrid's very birth was the result of dark magic."

"Which, to be fair, it was. The process involved vivisecting live wizards and creatures, combining their essences, and then incubating the results in highly illegal and very disgusting potions for nine months. But Hagrid himself is a good person despite his origins, if hopelessly naive and ignorant of his origins. His adopted father lied to him and told him his 'mum' had left their family to return to the giant colonies, and he still believes it. And Gunther is a good person too. Most of Echidna's creations were literal monsters, misshapen horrors that lacked sentience or, worse, were self-aware but violently insane, and those were all put down. Only a few were allowed to live. Gunther and Rubeus were adopted by the Hagrid brothers, a pair of ICW hit wizards who retired to Britain after Echidna was brought down. They both felt that they had an obligation to raise the two infants who could sort of pass for human even if they really weren't. Dumbledore was also part of the taskforce, and he arranged it for them. There was also a half-veela who was adopted into the Delacour family in France. She eventually married one of the sons of the Delacour family, and today they have a daughter at Beauxbatons who's only a few years older than us. There was another half-giant who was exceptionally skilled at magic and, somewhat amazingly, is currently the headmistress at Beauxbatons. I guess the French are more open-minded about the whole thing than the British. I think there were a few other half-breeds, but I don't know any details about them if they even survived until today."

Hermione stiffened at Blaise's implication that Wizarding Britain might be more bigoted than Wizarding France ... and then slumped as she realized it was perfectly true.

"You know, I'd honestly hoped that the wizarding world was ...  _better_ than the Muggle world. But it's not, is it. You have bigotry. You have corruption. You have unethical experiments straight out of the Josef Mengele playbook. You even have organized crime. You're just like us except that magic gives you the potential to be awful in new and innovative ways."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "I don't really understand this  _you_  and  _us_  business, Hermione. You're a witch. The wizarding world is your world now as much as mine, warts and all."

"Is it really, Blaise? I'm a witch, but also a Muggleborn. And no one is ever going to let me forget it. Harry may have put a muzzle on Draco Malfoy, but I still hear Pansy Parkinson and Cassius Warrington whisper  _Mudblood_  whenever I get too near. Sitting here in the stately Villa Zabini with your house elves and your half-troll manservant and all the secrets you have that led you to become an Occlumens before you were out of short pants ... I'm sorry, Blaise, but you can't possibly know what it's like to be a Muggleborn."

With that, she rose slowly from the table (for Hermione was suddenly quite tired) and walked out of the sun room. Blaise stared down into the cup of fortified milk in front of him. He took a deep breath.

"I  _am_  a Muggleborn," he said calmly but firmly. After about five seconds, Hermione poked her head back into the room.

"...  _what?!_ "

He looked up at her with a sad smile. "I. Am. A. Muggleborn. My birthname was Christian Nembiko. My birth-father was Mosi Nembiko, a Muggle from Kenya who came to Britain to study medicine. My birth-mother was Sabrina Zabini, who was my adoptive mother's youngest sister and also a squib. Unlike most Pureblood families, however, the Zabinis don't throw their squibs out into the cold. They maintained ties with Sabrina and ensured that she was taken care of financially and had an excellent education. Like my father, she decided to become a doctor. They met at university, fell in love, and got married. They both completed medical degrees but instead of going to hospitals or some fancy private practice, they decided to open up a small clinic for underserved immigrants in Brixton. Sabrina had a sizeable stipend from the Zabini family that covered their living expenses, and they were both happy to essentially provide medical services at cost."

He paused suddenly and then swallowed almost painfully. "They were both murdered when I was six."

Hermione gasped. "Death Eaters? Or some wizards who had a vendetta against House Zabini?"

Blaise snorted softly. "Honestly, Hermione," he said with a trace of bitterness. "You just complained that the wizarding world was no better than the Muggle world. Well, the reverse is equally true. My mother was white, my father was black, and we lived in Brixton in the early 1980's. Do the math."

Hermione looked away and then closed her eyes. She had been too young to understand such things at the time, but she was indeed very well-read for a girl of her age. The London suburb of Brixton, with its large immigrant community, had been a hotbed for racial violence throughout that time period and even to the present day.

Blaise saw that she understood. "At some point, a group of skinheads found out that a  _miscegenated_  couple was providing free medical care to all the  _darkies_  down in Brixton Town, and they firebombed the flat we lived in. My father tried to get through the flames to reach help but he didn't make it. My mother and I were trapped upstairs with no way out."

He blinked, and suddenly his eyes glistened as he remembered that night. "Then, my mum kissed me on the forehead and took off the charm bracelet she'd worn for as long as I remembered. It was gold and had a small sparrow charm on it. She put it in my hand and told me to say ' _Passeroto_ ,' which was Italian for Little Sparrow. That was my ... my Aunt Serena's pet name for my birth mother ... and now for me. It was also the password for the Portkey in the charm."

He inhaled deeply. "It was a miracle that it worked. Usually, only first generation squibs have enough magic to activate something as powerful as a Portkey. Maybe my mother had seen some signs of accidental magic that I don't remember. Maybe she just prayed. But either way, I turned out to be a wizard, and the Portkey carried me to the home of Lady Serena Zabini, my aunt who became my mother. I never saw my birth parents again outside of old photos."

"And she changed your name so that no one would know of your true Muggleborn nature," Hermione guessed in a soft voice.

He nodded. "The Zabinis may look after our squibs better than most, but we're still an old Pureblood family. The circles we travel in would have looked down on me for being Muggleborn, so she fashioned a new identify for me as her lovechild with a Pureblood wizard who had since died. She'd actually had a child born the same year as me, a girl named Blaise. That child died before the age of two, so she bribed the right people to alter the birth certificate so that it would be evidence for my Pureblood ancestry."

Blaise looked over to his friend with an amused expression. "So you wanted to know all my secrets, Hermione. I'm a Muggleborn pretender with a half-troll bodyguard and mortal enemies in the Black Hand, the crime syndicate I will hopefully one day inherit. Satisfied for now?"

She chuckled. "Oh, I don't know. Do you have any other secrets that will shock me to the core when I eventually find them out?"

Blaise said nothing at first. He thought briefly about the tiny amulet under his shirt hanging from a rosary, the one that bore the insignia of the Deathly Hallows and that not even his mentor and confessor, Monsignor Lucardi, knew about. But even if he was ready to tell Hermione about that, it was not his secret to share. He took another sip from his milk and savored the aftertaste of the Amaretto liqueur that had been added.

"Well, I've started noticing girls, if that counts," he finally said in a languid voice.

Hermione shook her head. "Nope. You're thirteen. That's not the least bit shocking."

Blaise took another longer sip. "And also boys," he added lightly almost as an afterthought.

The other Muggleborn studied her friend for a few seconds before breaking out into a smile. "Still not shocking," she said as she pulled him into a friendly hug which he returned.

"What about you?" the boy inquired. "Any dark and sinister secrets you want to share?"

"Sorry. No big secrets for me. I'm a Gryffindor. We're all as transparent as glass."

Blaise laughed in agreement. Then, they heard a door open in the front of the house and went to investigate. It was Gunther returning with the Grangers and the Countess. Hermione looked over at her friend and thought about what it must have felt like to lose one's parents, not by them gradually pulling apart, but through terrible violence. Then, she rushed forward and pulled her mother and then her father into a hug.

"Hermione, dear," said a surprised Emma. "What's wrong?"

The witch looked up at her parents, one a Muggle and the other a squib (just like Blaise's parents), and she smiled.

"Nothing's wrong, Mum. I just realized I haven't spent any time with my parents on this vacation, and it's time I did something about that. I've finished ... one of my projects early, so why don't we go off tomorrow and do something together as a family. Something completely and wonderfully Muggle."

Dan looked back and forth between his wife and daughter and gave a laugh. "Sure, sweetheart. Your mother and I will go change clothes, and then we'll plan out something for tomorrow. Something all three of us can do together."

The three Grangers hugged again. Blaise watched them with a smile, while the Countess did so with a look of detached amusement. Then, Dan and Emma went upstairs. As soon as they were gone, Hermione went over to Gunther, and to the hulking man's surprise, she gave him a strong hug as well.

"Thank you for saving our lives today, Gunther," she whispered in a voice full of affection. Somewhat surprised but also pleased, the half-troll patted the girl gently on the back.

"Any time, little miss. Any time."

* * *

_**10 July 1993  
1:30 a.m.** _

Hermione lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. The curtains were open, but the moon was only half-full and its light was dim. She sighed in annoyance and pounded on her pillow, as if hoping that changing its shape would help sleep come. Honestly, it was ridiculous that she should be robbed of sleep over guilt from such a minor sin in the face of all the much larger sins of the world, but there it was. Blaise Zabini – mysterious, duplicitous, manipulative, Slytherinesque Blaise Zabini – had opened himself up to the girl and told her things he'd probably never shared with anyone other than perhaps the Countess and Gunther.

And then, she'd lied in his face. She wondered if her newfound Occlumency protections were what had allowed her to lie so effortlessly.

" _Sorry. No big secrets for me. I'm a Gryffindor. We're all as transparent as glass."_

Liar.

" _ **LUMOS.**_ " The soft lights in the bedroom came on, and with a huff, Hermione pulled herself out of bed and made her way to the writing desk. She flipped open the notebook into which she'd written a to-do list the night before, and for a long time, she stared at all the tasks she'd set for herself over the course of the coming year. Then, slowly and with deliberate purpose, she drew a long thin line through the first item.

"One down," she muttered to herself.

* * *

_**21 DAYS UNTIL AZKABAN** _


	3. Prelude (Jim)

**Chapter 3: Jim Potter and the Beast of Shamballa (Pt 1)  
**

_**Somewhere, Sometime...** _

_The little boy had been lost in the woods for longer than he could remember, and as the night got colder, he'd ended up huddled under a tree sobbing quietly and shivering both from the cold and from fear. For he knew that there was a monster after him, a great and terrible monster that would devour him whole if it caught him. Then, the boy gasped in terror as a demonic howl erupted from farther into the woods. It was some distance away, but closer than the last time he'd heard it just a few minutes before. The boy began to weep piteously. He was alone and cold and the monster would be here soon. Then, as that thought rippled through his terrified mind, the boy heard another sound much closer. He turned and saw that the bushes just a few feet away were rustling as some thing pushed its way through them. And the distant howl that had so frightened the boy was now replaced by a different animal sound. A low, hungry growl._ _  
_

_The bushes parted, and the boy screamed._

* * *

__**2 July 1993  
The Patil Estate  
Madras, India**

Jim Potter awoke to warm tropical sunlight streaming through the open window of his room accompanied by the faint aroma of jasmine and coriander. He sat up in his canopied bed and for the first real time took a good solid look through the gauzy curtains at the guest room in which he'd been sleeping fitfully for the last day and a half. Like Ron (who was in the room across the hall), Jim had no prior experience with International Portkeys, let alone Portkeys designed for traveling to the literal opposite side of the globe. Accordingly, he and Ron had both been quite sick upon arrival and for most of the next day. Even his mother Lily had suffered a strong reaction, though the effect was far more pronounced on the two boys whose growing magical cores were more sensitive to the experience. Padma and Parvati, having made the trip many times, were smugly immune much to Jim and Ron's chagrin.

The Patil estate was located on a beautiful spot of coastline off the Bay of Bengal situated roughly twenty miles north of Madras, a major Muggle population center. The sands were golden, the waters were azure, and the weather was invariably perfect. The Patils and their guests would spend another day here recuperating from the journey before taking a local (and far less nauseating) Portkey to Delhi and then moving on to Shamballa. The Patil sisters were both somewhat cagey on exactly what "Shamballa" was, leaving Jim and Ron with the impression that it was the Indian equivalent of Diagon Alley, a thought which amused the twin girls for some unknown reason.

Jim inhaled deeply of the fragrances in the air that seemed so different from the familiar scents of the British Isles. As he did, he thought back over his summer so far. He'd been home from Hogwarts for barely a day when Harry and his solicitor unexpectedly came through the Floo to demand a private meeting with James. They'd spent thirty minutes together in James's private study, a conversation which eventually turned into a shouting match before Harry stormed out again and returned to Longbottom Manor without even acknowledging either his twin or their mother. Soon after, Jim had gotten the truth from James. Theo Nott – or rather Theo No-Name – had been cast out of his house under something called "the Ultimate Sanction" and would soon be an object of scorn and hatred from most of Wizarding Britain.

Somewhat ironically, he would  _not_  be an object of hatred as far as Jim was concerned. While most everyone associated with any of the Noble Houses would be affected by the Sanction, it would affect neither Hogwarts professors nor aurors ... nor their children. Nevertheless, James firmly encouraged Jim to avoid Theo No-Name, as Jim's reputation had only just recovered from the Heir of Slytherin business, and the family didn't need the controversy that would accompany any association with the outcast boy. Jim gave his father a look of deep disappointment and then left without saying anything more.

After that, Jim had been oddly relieved to be spending most of his Summer Break away from his home and from James Potter. He still loved his father dearly, but, as was often the case for young teenagers, Jim was going through a phase of not  _liking_  him very much. And so, he wasn't at all bothered by the fact that most of his Summer Break would be spent away from the man, first with a week with Harry at Longbottom Manor followed by a full  _month_  in Shamballa studying with the Patil sisters' Uncle Gupta. He and Lily were scheduled to return to Potter Manor the day before the Jim Potter Birthday Gala (which was inexplicably being held again despite the  _hideous bloodbath_  from Jim's  _last_  birthday party!) and then spend a month there before school started. Hopefully by then, the tension between Jim and his father would be diminished, which would be good because he was expecting entirely new forms of tension this upcoming year at school due to the Theo No-Name situation. Perhaps most disturbingly, Jim was concerned about conflict with (of all people!) his house-mate Neville Longbottom. As he climbed out of bed and stretched out the kinks of a day and a half of Portkey sickness, Jim thought back to his visit to the Longbottoms and the other boy's unusually intense feelings about Theo No-Name.

* * *

_**Then ...** _

_Jim had arrived at Longbottom Manor by Floo back on June 23_ _rd_ _just in time for brunch before spending the rest of the day outside. Lady Longbottom had wanted Jim to help Neville improve his broom-handling skills, Neville wanted to spend time in the greenhouse (and to be fair, Jim's own Herbology grades needed work), and Harry just wanted to lounge around the pool and work on his tan that never seemed to darken. It wasn't until that evening that Jim had finally gotten a tour of Longbottom Manor._

" _Thank you once again for having me, Lady Longbottom," Jim had said over the breakfast table as he reviewed the startling large assortment of jams and jellies produced by Longbottom Farms before finally reaching for the one marked "Peppered Peach and Rosemary."_

_Lady Augusta waved her hand diffidently. "Not at all, my boy. I'm delighted to have you here. My hope is that you and Harry together can help Neville to get over his reticence about broom-riding. It is a valuable skill even outside of Quidditch, and it's high time he mastered it."_

_Jim and Harry laughed at Neville's grimace. He'd known since school ended that Jim would be visiting them at some point during the Summer break, but he had been quite surprised when his grandmother had cornered him the night before to announce that after welcoming the Boy-Who-Lived with a nice brunch, he was to spend the rest of the day outside getting some exercise which would include broom-riding lessons from the best two flyers in his year._

_After some amiable chit-chat over brunch (Jim noticed that Augusta and Harry both resolutely avoided asking how his parents were doing), the three boys headed upstairs to get their broomsticks. Harry tarried in the rear, and before he left the sunroom, he turned back to Augusta._

" _How long should I keep him occupied?" he asked quietly._

_She glanced up at the wall clock which read 11:15. "Until sunset if possible. I'll have a house elf send you a picnic lunch around two o'clock."_

_Harry nodded and followed his friend and his brother upstairs._

_All things considered, Jim thought his week with Harry was enjoyable with only one hiccup. At one point, Jim mentioned Theo No-Name to ask if Harry knew how the boy was doing, and he was startled by the angry response from Neville to effect that "everybody knows the boy's dark and he probably deserved his punishment, so why do people have to keep talking about it?!" Jim glanced over to Harry with wide eyes, but his twin simply and discreetly shook his head "no." Later, while Neville was engrossed with a particularly difficult plant in the greenhouse, Jim pulled Harry aside and asked about the boy's uncharacteristically harsh reaction._

_Harry sighed in frustration. "You and I are are basically immune to the Sanction because James is Chief Auror and Lily is a Hogwarts professor, plus we've both had Occlumency training. Neville not only has no Occlumency skill at all, he's also wearing his official Heir's Ring which ties him into the Wizengamot's communal magic network. That actually heightens the reaction. Except for any students who are actual Nott vassals, Neville might be more strongly affected than anyone else at Hogwarts."_

_Jim looked back towards Neville and shuddered. Easily the kindest boy Jim had ever known, Neville Longbottom was now consumed by an obvious disdain towards a former close friend just because of a cruelly abused spell. It was horrifying and made Jim only more eager to get to India and begin his Occlumency training in earnest._

* * *

_**Now...** _

And that training, hopefully, would begin in the next day or so once the group reached the mysterious Shamballa. Shaking off his misgivings about Theo's situation, Jim dressed quickly for his morning workout before heading across the hall to knock on Ron's door. His friend answered groggily but appropriately dressed.

"Ready for our morning jog? I've never been jogging on a beach before!" Jim said with exaggerated cheerfulness.

Ron gave a sour look. "You know, after all those months when we didn't talk because I was possessed and wanted to kill you, I'd totally forgotten how bloody obnoxious you are in the mornings."

"Lies! You love me like a brother! And don't say ' _bloody_.' Hermione wouldn't approve, and I promised to nag you on her behalf until school starts back up."

Ron snorted and then followed his best friend outside for their morning workout.

* * *

_**3 July 1993** _

The next day, Jim, Ron, Lily, and most of the Patils were waiting out on the front porch of the compound. Parvati, alas, was running late, having changed clothes three times.

"She'll be meeting  _Sanjeeeeev_  on this trip for the first time since we started Hogwarts," Padma said mockingly.

"Padma!" exclaimed Mrs. Patil. "Be nice to your sister! You know how important it is to make a favorable impression on the Pasha's son! It's the first time they've met face to face since she was  _seven_!"

Padma nodded respectfully to her mother and then turned back to Jim and Ron, rolling her eyes as she did to make it plain that she had not the slightest concern for impressing the Pasha's son. Soon enough, Pavarti came down and the Patils and their guests all grabbed hold of a long silken cord which was the Portkey to Delhi. With a pop and an instant of uneasiness (one that, mercifully, was nothing compared to the trip from London to Madras), the group was suddenly in an alleyway off of a busy Delhi street. Mr. Patil reassured the group that there was a Muggle-Repelling Charm on that alley to ensure that no one would notice their arrival before leading the group out onto the jam-packed streets of Delhi. Jim and Ron both marveled at how crowded the city was, with people, with vehicles, and even with large animals in the streets. Jim had some experience navigating London with his parents, but that was nothing compared to what he was experiencing now. And poor Ron, who never even visited the township of Ottery St. Catchpole without the company of his parents, was nearly overwhelmed at the crush of Muggles. At one point, Parvati had to grab him by the arm and yank him out of the way of a passing lorry that didn't even slow down. The girl gave him a pointed look, and he blushed in response.

Ten minutes later, the group entered a small, nondescript office underneath a sign in a language that the boys couldn't read. Once inside, Mr. Patil spoke to a bored-looking official in the local tongue. A thought occurred to Jim, and he leaned over to Padma.

"How big of a problem is it that we don't speak ... Hindi? Sanskrit? Or whatever language it is people speak here?" he asked. The girl simply gave him a knowing smile.

"Not a problem at all, Jim, I assure you."

As if to belie that, the official pulled out a large chunk of topaz bigger than a man's head and a faded notecard. He began reading the card in phonetic English marred by a nearly incomprehensible Indian accent.

_"Weel each of yoo een turn step furward and tooch yoor wand ubon dis stone. Den repeat aftair me. Eye, state yoor name, swear ubon my majick dat I will keep de peace of Shamballa."_

Jim and Ron looked at each other dubiously while the Patils stepped forward and took the brief oath, followed by Lily. Finally, the two boys followed suit. Satisfied, the official opened up a small wooden gate to allow the group to follow him down a corridor. At the end of the hallway was a heavy metal door with a keyhole in the center. The official pulled out a ring of keys, selected one in particular, and inserted it into the lock. As he pulled the heavy door open, Jim was surprised by a sudden blast of cold air. One by one the group passed through the door to whatever lay beyond. The Patils, who knew what to expect, let the way, followed by the three British visitors, each of whom gasped in amazement.

Beyond the door was an enormous patio-balcony with a polished marble floor. Stunned by the sight, Jim slowly walked forward to the edge of the balcony to take in the view, shaking off the chill as he did. Below him was not a mere alley as he had been expecting. It was  _a city_. Shamballa was a true magical metropolis, easily ten times the size of Diagon Alley in area. But while the tallest building in Diagon Alley was the four-story Gringotts Bank (well, four stories  _above_  ground, at least), Shamballa was dotted with gleaming towers, many of which were ten stories or more. The skies above the city were teeming with scores upon scores of magic carpets, zeppelin-like airships, and flying chariots drawn by all manner of magical beasts. Then, Lily looked up past the city to the mountain range which rose above it and gasped. While not an expert in geography by any means, she was certainly lettered enough to recognize the summit of Mt. Everest when she saw it.

"We're in the Himalayas!" she exclaimed.

"Indeed," said the magical official amiably and now in what sounded like perfect English. "And now that we are here, please allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Hapranda Suresh, Guardian of the Delhi Portal. On behalf of the city's inhabitants,  _Welcome to Shamballa_!"

Jim looked at him in surprise. "Wait, this whole time you actually speak English?"

Suresh laughed. "No, young traveler. I am not speaking English and neither are you. Here in Shamballa, we all speak  _Language_!"

Jim and Ron stared in confusion as Padma explained. "The city of Shamballa was founded over 3,000 years ago by wizards and witches from across Asia, from the Persian Empire to India and China all the way to Japan and Malaysia. Their goal was to establish a truly magical nation separated as completely as possible from the non-magical world. The original city founders included a large number of powerful wizards and witches, all of whom spoke a variety of local languages and dialects. To facilitate their cooperation, the magic that supports the city includes a spell that allows everyone in this valley, regardless of origin, to understand one another. There might be a few idiosyncratic words that sound foreign, but for the most part, while you're here, you aren't speaking English or Hindu or Mandarin or whatever. You're speaking ... Language."

Parvati sighed loudly to her mother. "Padma's in lecture mode again, Mummy. I'm going to freshen up before Sanjeev gets here."

"Sweetheart," said Mr. Patil with a bit of exasperation, "you should have done that before we got here."

"I did, Papa. But then you made us walk for ten minutes through a Delhi slum and now I'm filthy." And without another word, Parvati strolled off imperiously to a nearby door marked with the universal sign for "Ladies' Room," her doting mother in tow.

Jim shook his head and turned back to Suresh. "So I assume that oath we swore has something to do with whatever passes for a Trace over here. How does it work?"

"Much more efficiently than the one you are accustomed to in Britain, young man. You are free to use your magic as you will here in Shamballa, for there are no Muggles to see you. The city itself will watch over you and judge the rightness of your actions. Cast a spell with criminal or malicious intent, and the aurors in the Tower of Justice are immediately notified of your actions and location. Only aurors, healers, and certain high-ranking city officials are capable of apparating within the city's boundaries except at certain specified apparation points, so escape would be very difficult. So long as it harm no others, do as you will is the whole of Shamballa's law, at least where underage magic is concerned."

Both boys were surprised by the news, causing Padma to smirk at them. "So I guess you understand why I come back here every Summer, huh?"

Ron leaned over the balcony railing, still awestruck by the city which looked like something out of an ancient fairy tale. "How many people live here?" he asked.

"About 50,000 permanent residents, of whom 30,000 are wizards and witches and the rest squibs," said Mr. Patil. "Plus another 10,000 people who work here in some capacity or pursue education here but who have homes elsewhere in magical communities ranging from Iran to Japan. Also a few thousand tourists at any given time."

Then, the group's attention was drawn to a truly enormous flying carpet, one big enough to hold a twenty-by-twenty silken tent with room to spare, flew up from the city below to park alongside the balcony. A dashing young teen stepped out of the tent, resplendent in traditional Indian garb with a ceremonial sword at his side and a sash over his chest covered in jewels and medals. While he was good-looking and brimming with confidence, Ron found something about the newcomer off-putting. For some reason, he reminded Ron of an Indian Draco Malfoy. Somewhat nervously, Mr. Patil stepped forward and bowed respectfully.

"Esteemed Sanjeev, Son of Kumar, you honor us with your presence."

The young man, who was undoubtedly Parvati's future husband, bowed just as deeply and respectfully. "Venerable Elder Patil, on behalf of my father the Pasha, welcome to Shamballa." Then, he turned to Padma. "And my heart is gladdened to finally see my beautiful intended once again after all these years."

Before anyone could intervene, Sanjeev stepped forward, took Padma's hand in his own, and kissed it ... only for the romantic scene to be interrupted by a loud squawk from the nearby ladies' room. It was a shocked and visibly angry Parvati. Sanjeev looked back and forth between the two Patil sisters in confusion.

"Wrong twin," Padma finally said almost blandly.

Sanjeev immediately dropped Padma's hand as if it were poisonous before striding over to the fuming Parvati to make his apologies. Then, as the group boarded Sanjeev's flying carpet, Jim leaned over to Padma.

"You enjoyed that  _way_  too much," he whispered. She didn't respond, but the ghost of a smile on her face said everything.

* * *

_**That afternoon at the Temple of Wisdom** _

As it was deemed socially inappropriate for the Patils to stay at the Pasha's estate so many years in advance of Parvati and Sanjeev's wedding, the Pasha had booked several suites for the group at one of the city's palatial hotels. The travelers' luggage had already been sent ahead, and after everyone had freshened up, Mr. Patil arranged transport for the group to the Temple of Wisdom, an enormous monastery-like building which Padma said served as both Shamballa's answer to Hogwarts and also the city's center for advanced Mastery-level learning. Gupta Baskar apparently split his time between the Temple of Wisdom where he taught apprentice healers and the nearby Temple of Health, where he served as Chief Mind Healer. The man himself was waiting on the front steps of the Temple of Wisdom as the group arrived.

Immediately, Jim took a liking to the man. Though obviously an important figure, Baskar radiated the genial and kindly aura of someone who had devoted his life to the health and peace of others. According to Padma, the healer was well over ninety years old yet looked to be less than half that age. He wore a long white tunic over linen trousers and an open sky-blue robe. A small insignia was woven into the robe's fabric, the international insignia of the magical healer. After taking a few seconds to hug his niece and his two grand-nieces, Baskar bowed respectfully to Jim, Ron, and Lily before shaking each of their hands in turn.

"Welcome to the Temple of Wisdom, my friends. Let us adjourn to my office, where we can discuss your agenda for your time here." At that point, Mr. and Mrs. Patil took their leave, as they had business in the city, and Parvati left with them. Padma, to the boys' surprise, stayed behind, saying that she had her own business here at the Temple of Wisdom before waving her fingers at them and then heading off on her own.

Soon after, the remaining four were seated in Baskar's office enjoying tea and watercress sandwiches. Idly, Lily wondered if Gupta Baskar normally took tea or was simply being solicitous of his British guests. If the man was really over ninety, he very well may have had some unpleasant memories of India's time as a British possession. If so, he gave no sign of it.

"Now then," he began, "I have reviewed the letters you sent me, Mr. Potter, as well as my own observations based on the British newspaper articles which Padma provided. As I see it, your goals for this summer are three-fold. One, for both you and Mr. Weasley to undergo magical healing to address the various psychic traumas you have each experienced in the last year. Two, for you and Mr. Weasley as well to develop functional Occlumency shields able to defend against psychic intrusion. And three, for both of you to begin an exploration of the gift of Parseltongue which each of you seems to have acquired." He took a sip of tea. " _Isss that about the sssize of it?_ " he hissed softly in the serpentine language that only Jim and Ron could comprehend. They each nodded silently, both acutely aware of how Lily stiffened nervously in the chair between them.

Baskar crooked an eyebrow. "Please forgive me, Mrs. Potter. It was rude of me to speak in a language you don't speak. Parselmouths who interact regularly with one another often slip into that language without realizing it. This is especially true here in Shamballa, as Parseltongue is the only language not automatically translated by the city's magic, a fact that we Parselmouths often forget."

"It's alright, Healer Baskar," Lily said unconvincingly. "I quite understand."

"I am pleased. Now, I think the next step should be for me to talk to each of you in turn. I will, of course, be bound by the healer's vow of confidentiality, but more than that, I think it important to develop a bond of trust with each of my patients. And also, when it comes to Parseltongue, with each of my students. Mrs. Potter, as the other grown-up in the room, you have the privilege of going first."

At the healer's direction, Ron and Jim stepped out into the waiting area outside Baskar's office while the two adults had a brief discussion. While the two adults were talking, several people came by to speak with the healer's squib receptionist, one of whom caught Jim's eye immediately. It was muscular bald man who wore Eastern-style clothing appropriate to a martial artist and who had a number of scars on his face and his exposed arms. The most intriguing thing about the man, however, was the fact that, other than Ron and Lily, he was the only other person Jim had seen so far in Shamballa whose skin tone marked him as a European rather than Asian. The man brusquely identified himself as Brother Chandra and said that due to unexpected developments, he would be canceling his appointment with the healer scheduled for that afternoon. Then, as he turned to leave, he noticed the two boys and gave Jim what he thought was a surprisingly angry glare before storming out. Jim wondered if he'd ever met the man before, but he didn't look at all familiar.

After fifteen minutes, Lily exited the healer's office bearing a thoughtful expression. Jim's talk lasted longer, about thirty minutes, as did Ron's subsequent meeting. Jim came out surprisingly upbeat. Ron, less so.

* * *

_**Lily and the Healer** _

"Mrs. Potter, in the interests of time and efficiency, I will come straight to the point. As your son's mind healer, it is my strong recommendation that you spend as little time as possible personally observing Jim's treatment and training here at the Temple. Ideally none at all."

Lily blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?! This is my son we're talking about!"

"I am well aware of that. I am also aware though several weeks of research of what it means to be the Boy-Who-Lived. And also by extension, what it means to be the Mother-of-the-Boy-Who-Lived. Without even a formal examination of the boy's psyche, it is obvious that he values your approval highly. Which makes it  _a problem_  that you cannot bear the sound of Parseltongue spoken aloud without visibly flinching."

The woman fumed at that but couldn't deny the accusation. "I'm sorry, Healer Baskar, but I can't help it. Growing up in the era I did, the sound of Parseltongue to me sounds like ... like the sound of  _You-Know-Who himself_."

Baskar blinked twice. "You ... Know... Are your referring to the Dark Lord Voldemort?"

She flinched again. "We ... don't like to say his name."

"Really? How very odd."

She shrugged. "Yes, well, his being one of the worst Dark Lords in history made something of an impact on people."

The healer scoffed gently. "With all due respect, Mrs. Potter. I wouldn't even characterize Voldemort as the worst Dark Lord of  _Europe_ within the past  _century_. Grindelwald was indubitably worse, and the Dark Lady Echidna might well have been if she hadn't been caught early."

Lily stiffened with just a hint of brewing anger. "Healer Baskar, I  _lived_  through the War against You-Know-Who. I know first hand what it was like, as does every single resident of Wizarding Britain who survived that era."

"I have no doubt. I merely note, Mrs. Potter, that during that same period, we here in Shamballa were rather more concerned with the Dark Lord Li-Tsien Chang's efforts to claim the mantle of the Fifth Dragon Emperor and with the Malaysian Witch Queen Salanga's schemes to open a portal to the Yomi Realm and unleash an army of undead penanggalan. Not to mention the horrific violence perpetrated by various Muggle military organizations across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia during that era, violence which not only decimated local Wizarding communities but also unwittingly threatened the integrity of magical seals which had been containing ancient horrors since before the time of Merlin."

He took a sip of tea. "Britain is not the World, Mrs. Potter," he finally said. Caught off guard by his remarks, Lily said nothing, and after a moment, Baskar continued.

"But enough of ancient history. Let us return to the matter at hand. As one of the world's foremost experts on Parseltongue, I can assure you that it's not  _just_  fear of ... You-Know-Who that causes your reaction, Mrs. Potter. It is an inherent quality of Parseltongue that it triggers a powerful fear reaction within those who cannot speak it. That is the primary reason it is so difficult to learn. Most dedicated students with an ear for languages could probably master Parseltongue in under a year except for the unfortunate complication that simply  _listening_  to it for extended periods of time prior to mastery often causes extreme psychological distress. We generally do not even allow any student here at the Temple of Wisdom to begin a study prior to mastering the third-level of Occlumency or the equivalent." He smiled at an old memory. "Sometimes, of course, that aspect of the language can be quite useful. Many years ago, I once drove off a gang of Muggles who sought to do me harm simply by loudly insulting their ancestry in Parseltongue."

The healer shifted in his chair before changing the topic. "But setting aside your own psychological response to your son's ability, I am more interested in how he came to possess it. The British news articles I read seemed to suggest that he acquired the skill from Lord ... You-Know-Who through what was described as ' _right of magical conquest_ ,' a fanciful suggestion that seems like something out of a children's fairy tale. Tell me, does your other son show any signs of being a Parselmouth?"

Lily frowned at the mention of Harry. "None that I'm aware of. Though to be honest, Harry didn't grow up around us, so I really couldn't say definitively. He's given no sign of being able to talk to snakes since he's come back to our family."

Baskar nodded. "And if I may ask, under what circumstances was your other son separated from your family?"

Lily looked down at the table and took a deep breath before exhaling. "When Harry was a baby, I made a decision that I thought was the right thing at the time but which I've since realized was a disastrous horrible mistake, one we're still trying to correct as best we can."

The healer made a mental note of the apparent sensitivity of the topic of Harry Potter. "Is there any possibility that this is a magically inherited trait? That either you or your husband are descended from Salazar Slytherin?"

"Absolutely not. James's family tree goes back almost a thousand years. There's no evidence that any of his ancestors intermarried with known or suspected Slytherin families, and after Jim was revealed publicly as a Parselmouth, James checked with all the family portraits to see if anyone had any memories of a Parselmouth in the family."

"And on your side of the family, Mrs. Potter?" he asked delicately.

"I'm a Muggleborn, Healer Baskar."

He frowned at the term. "There are no Muggleborns, Mrs. Potter. One is either magical, nonmagical, or latent-magical. Here in Shamballa, we use the terms  _Muggle_  and  _squib_ only when the idiosyncrasies of Language compel us to. Your parents, grandparents, and other forebears may have lacked obvious magical potential, but somewhere in your family tree, one of your ancestors was a witch or wizard, or else you would not be here for this conversation." He paused to study Lily's reactions. "As I'm sure you know quite well, Mrs. Potter. You strike me as a highly intelligent woman, one who is also a Hogwarts Professor. The unlettered masses may entertain fantasies of nonmagicals stealing away the magic from their children to leave them as squibs, but no educated wizard or witch believes that a  _Muggleborn_  is anything other than the magical offspring born of a lineage of latent wizards. Though, of course, a great many educated wizards and witches still  _feign_  belief in such fantasies for personal or political reasons when they really know better."

"Well, be that as it may, Healer Baskar," Lily said firmly, "I am confident that there are no wizards in my family history as far back as I've been able to trace it."

If Gupta Baskar noticed that Lily avoided eye contact as she made that declaration, he was too polite to comment.

"And besides," she continued, "if Jim's Parseltongue comes from my side of the family, why can't  _I_  speak to snakes?"

"Well, you're a  _woman,_  of course," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She narrowed her eyes dangerously at what she assumed was some form of sexism.

"I beg your pardon!" she said testily.

Baskar studied her with some confusion. "Oh, I apologize. I assumed you knew. The form of hereditary Parseltongue that Salazar Slytherin incorporated into his genetic code only manifests in his male descendants. Women can, of course, learn Parseltongue the hard way just as I did, but they cannot inherit it naturally just by virtue of being one of Slytherin's heirs."

She paused in surprise. "Oh, no, I didn't know... Wait, Slytherin's genetic code? You understand genetics?" The witch appeared visibly shocked by his casual use of the scientific term.

The healer nodded. "Naturally. In addition to a Mastery in Magical Healing, I also hold an M.D. from Johns Hopkins in America, and I strive to stay abreast of new developments in both magical and Muggle healing."

Lily's eyes lit up, and she started asking him surprisingly insightful questions about the application of Muggle science to magical practices. Bascar smiled to himself.

" _In retrospect,_ " he thought, " _I suppose I should have led with the fact that I have a Muggle medical degree if I wanted her to agree to my recommendations. Lily Potter is_ _exactly_ _the sort of witch who would consider a university certificate more impressive than even a dozen Masteries._ "

* * *

_**Jim and the Healer** _

When Jim returned to Healer Baskar's office, he noticed that the furniture had been rearranged somewhat. The desk and most of the chairs around it were gone. Only two comfortable chairs remained situated so as to face each other. To the side of one was a small table holding a tiny glass globe. Baskar gestured for Jim to take a seat, and as he did so, the healer produced a long thin willow wand with which he affirmed his healer's oath of patient confidentiality before placing the wand next to the globe.

"Now that the formalities are done, Mr. Potter," the healer began as he the opposite seat, "I'd like to start with a general Legilimency scan to assess the current state of your mind and soul so that I can properly devise a course of treatment. Have you learned how to clear your thoughts yet?"

Jim frowned. "Not really. Professor Dumbledore worked with me some, but we didn't make much progress last year before things ... went crazy."

Baskar nodded. "Well, I shall endeavor to avoid looking at any particular thoughts or memories. And since you can't actively clear your mind, you can do the next best thing – ask me questions!"

"About what?" Jim asked.

"About whatever pops into your head. Your goal is to keep your attention directed towards my responses and any follow-up questions you choose to make so that you don't have an opportunity to fixate on personal memories you do not want me to see." And with that, Baskar held up his hands in front of Jim's face and waved them back and forth several times in a stylized manner before gently touching the boy's temples with his middle fingers. " _Contact_ ," he whispered softly.

Jim had been surprised by the man's approach to mind-reading which seemed different from both Dumbledore and Snape, and his first question was about his Legilimency technique.

"Your Professors Snape and Dumbledore are, understandably, steeped in Western magical tradition," Baskar replied without taking his eyes off of Jim's. "Specifically, the Merlinian system and its reliance on wands and incantations. While I am proficient with wanded magic, I learned Legilimency in India where our traditional magical styles rely on mudras and katas as magical foci instead of wands."

"Mudras?" the boy asked with some confusion.

"A mudra is a stylized hand movement with magical significance within Indian mysticism. A kata is much the same except that it involves the whole body and is more associated with Chinese mysticism."

"I know what katas are. We learn them in Taekwando. Do you mean you can use those to do wandless magic?"

"Not in the sense you mean. In the Merlinian system - try not to blink so much if you can help it - anyway, in the Merlinian system, one learns to cast a spell with wand and incantation first. Then, after years spent mastering a spell, the wizard is eventually able to imagine casting the spell so clearly that he does not actually need the wand or the words to cast the spell. Traditionalist Eastern wizards, however, do not begin their studies with wands or words but with meticulously exacting body movements. This general technique has many forms and many names depending on where in Asia you find yourself. In India, it is known as the Mayavani technique, while in China, its more martial equivalent is called Wu Xi Do. Here in Shamballa, Language generally renders our common approach as the Enlightened Path."

Jim frowned as he considered the healer's words while trying to hold eye contact. "So why would people ever use wands if it's possible to just use your bare hands?"

"Because the process of learning magic through the Enlightened Path is incredibly exacting, to the extent that we generally begin magical training at the age of four instead of eleven. However, using a  _tool_  instead of just the body allows one to produce magical effects with movements that are at once less complicated and less precise. In China and Japan, swords have been popular magical foci for many centuries, and nearly every magical culture has made extensive use of carefully crafted wooden staffs. The innovation of the Roman wizard Merlinus Ambroginus was to carve a staff down into a hollow wand and then fill its interior with biological matter from a magical creature of some kind. The result was a lightweight instrument that could be held in one hand and was inherently magical. Wands can be used to cast Charms with very simple movements that don't require the high levels of precision or physicality demanded by other foci. A wizard who studied the Enlightened Path was considered a Charms master if he could perform twenty-five or more Charms with just body movements. A wizard trained with a staff was considered a Charms master if he could use it to cast a hundred Charms. With a wand, a Charms Master is expected to know a thousand or more Charms. According to his biographical information, your Charms instructor Filius Flitwick has committed over 20,000 Charms to memory."

The boy blinked as he absorbed all that. Like every other British wizard, he knew who Merlin was ... sort of. Depending on which historian you asked, Merlin was either one incredibly powerful and long-lived wizard who influenced European and especially British wizardry for over a thousand years ... or else he (or she) was one of at least five individual wizards who'd all had similar names that got shortened to Merlin by sloppy record-keeping. The fabled wand-maker Merlinus Ambroginus was only oldest name associated with "Merlin" according to his  _History of Magic_  notes. Jim was actually more intrigued by the reference to Professor Flitwick. He'd known the diminutive Charms Master for years and had completely failed to realize how exceptional he was within his area of expertise.

"So why do the wizards and witches here still use those other, um,  _foci_?"

"Foci is the plural of focus. And it's for a variety of reasons. The most important is that we have kept ourselves separate from the West for most of our history. The Romans never came this far East, and the Ottomans were only occasional visitors. Muggle Britain has dominated both India and China but only quite recently by our reckoning, and not many wizards came with them. We have only had wand-makers in this part of the world for the past few centuries, and to be frank, their quality remains below that of the top European wand-makers like Gregorovich and Ollivander who are the inheritors of a 2,000-year-old art form. But more importantly, there are inherent advantages of our traditional techniques which, to many of us, outweigh the superior Charm-casting advantages of wand-working. Some of those advantages we'll be discussing as part of your treatment."

With that, the healer removed his fingers from Jim's temples and leaned back in his chair. Then, he took up his wand and tapped it against the globe which lit up with a soft light. Baskar addressed the globe, and its light shimmered in response to his words.

"This is Chief Mind Healer Gupta Baskar on 3 July 1993 recording the results of a preliminary psychic examination of one James Evan Potter Junior. Subject is a male wizard of British birth and descent approximately one month shy of his thirteenth birthday. Subject has an unusually strong core for his age registering between 9 and 11 on the Lubinsky-Chang scale, and he has completed two years of Hogwarts curriculum. Preliminary soul analysis indicates the following proportions: Air and Earth each between 15 and 20%. Fire a whopping 55%. Water less than 3%. Assessment of elemental soul sub-aspects to come later. Subject presents emotionally as a fairly well-adjusted boy for his age, but there are lingerings symptoms of PTSD and also aftereffects of exposure to a cursed Occlumency text which has resulted in a recent history of anger management issues. I am prescribing as an initial treatment an introduction into Water-style Wu Xi Do both as a relaxation and meditation tool and also to help realign the subject's Fire-Water imbalance."

Baskar tapped the globe again with his wand and it disappeared. Then, he turned to Jim with a smile. "Now, I suppose your wondering that all that jargon means. Where would you like to start?"

"Um, my ... Fire-Water imbalance, I guess?"

"There are four metaphysical components to the wizarding soul. In India, we have traditionally described them using the four traditional elements of the Buddhist cosmology: Air, Earth, Fire and Water. In the West, they might instead be described using the four bodily humours: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. Or to put it into more familiar terms, your extreme imbalance in favor of the Fire element is why you are a Gryffindor instead of a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw and why there was never a chance of you being a Slytherin even though the Sorting Hat surely knew you were a Parselmouth."

"Actually, the Hat offered me Slytherin."

"And let me guess, you rejected the suggestion out of hand and practically begged for Gryffindor."

Jim blushed at that as Baskar continued.

"In fact, I would hazard a guess that the Sorting Hat sensed your Fire-Water imbalance – or however a magical hat might consider it – and encouraged you to go to Slytherin in the hopes that being around so many Water-aligned classmates might help you to realign."

The boy considered that. "How do you know so much about Hogwarts Sortings?"

"Personal experience. I was sorted into Ravenclaw in 1914, though I returned to Shamballa after my Fourth Year and eventually took my OWLS here. The British climate was not conducive to my health." Then, Baskar chuckled. "By which I mean both the Scottish weather  _and_  the local political climate, but that's neither here nor there."

Jim pondered about that remark before moving on. "And my anger management issues?" he asked.

"Being Fire-aligned, you might be expected to have behavioral problems of that nature, but they were surely aggravated by the Occlumency book you had been studying as well as PTSD arising from your two encounters with Voldemort." He paused. "I notice you don't flinch at that name."

Jim smiled. "Somebody tries to kill you enough, you get used to it. At this point, I refuse to give the bastard the satisfaction of being afraid of him."

"Of course.  _Exactly_  as a Fire-aligned would say."

Jim's smile faded. "And that's ... a problem, then?"

"It is not a problem for one aspect to predominate, Mr. Potter. That's actually usually the case. It  _is_  a problem for one aspect to outweigh  _the other three combined_  and for one – the Water aspect, in this case – to be almost wholly absent. Based on my assessment and without having any personal knowledge of your personality and history, I would predict that you have a tendency to react on instinct instead of after considering all your options, that you have a heroic impulse that almost rises to the point of a martyr complex, and that you are generally impatient and impetuous in your decision-making. I also suspect that this imbalance is your biggest stumbling block to becoming an Occlumens, a skill that is generally considered Water-aligned. Would you say that describes your fairly well?"

The boy nodded. "And we're going to correct that with ... magical Kung Fu?"

Baskar snorted softly. "It's hardly Kung Fu, Mr. Potter. To the uninitiated, the style you'll be learning might look somewhat like Tai Chi, though its forms would look completely different to anyone who actually knew anything about Tai Chi. Basically, you'll be learning a system of body movements that will focus your magic through your body in a way that will relax your mind and harmonize the disparate elements of your soul."

Jim's eyes lit up. "Will I be able to learn to cast spells with martial arts?!"

Baskar suppressed a laugh. "Theoretically... if you practice at least ten hours a day ... for the next ten or so years. Right now, we're focusing on a more realistic goal of you spending an hour or so every day working on katas that will help you to control your emotions and experience a less stressful life."

Jim laughed as well. "Okay, we'll  _start_  with that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1: I swear to God and JKR, I wrote 95% of this chapter prior to seeing "Doctor Strange," and in particular, the Himalayan magical city of Shamballa was called that in my notes over four months ago. While Jim (and a few others) will be studying what appear to be wandless magical martial arts, they will not be remotely as flashy as in Doctor Strange or the Matrix, although a few Wu Xi Do tricks that Jim picks up may seem familiar.
> 
> AN2: Likewise, while elemental aspects are discussed as a fixture of Eastern mysticism, rest assured no one is going to learn Fire-bending or anything of that ilk nor any other form of elemental manipulation. While I love Avatar: The Last Airbender, that's not how things work in the POSverse. Wu Xi Do may provide Jim a few cool tricks, but he won't be wandlessly shooting fireballs or jets of water with his bare hands or flying through the air without a broom.


	4. Prelude (Jim) pt 2

**CHAPTER 4: Jim Potter and the Beast of Shamballa (pt 2)**

_**15 July 1993  
Longbottom Manor** _

As the warm afternoon sun shone down on his back, Harry Potter sat alone at a table on the balcony outside his room at Longbottom Manor while going over his daily correspondence (which was unusually heavy for a boy not yet thirteen). At the moment, he was reading the letter from his twin brother that had just arrived from India, and he suppressed a twinge of jealousy that Jim Potter of all people would be receiving specialized instruction into how to incorporate Parseltongue into spellcasting. Of course, once Harry was the Prince of Slytherin, he would have access to the largest treasure trove of Parseltongue lore in the world, but it still chafed that Jim would come back from India knowing more about their mutual gift than he. The boy shook his head as he shrugged off the negative emotions. He had business to attend to here in Britain that took precedence over both Parseltongue and sibling rivalry. Besides, from the tone of Jim's letters, had Harry gone to India as well, he would be spending as much time embroiled in interpersonal drama as he would be learning new magic.

From the nearby swimming pool, Harry heard a soft splash as Neville dove in for yet another set of laps. The young Slytherin glanced down at his friend and watched as he tore furiously through the water. Neville had been in a right state ever since Hermione's letters arrived from Italy the day before. The girl seemed quite eager to set up a "support group" for Theo Nott, a prospect which baffled Harry and enraged Neville. Not even several hours spent wrestling with a Venomous Tentacula had cooled his fury, so the boy had spent most of the afternoon engaged in disturbingly vigorous swimming. After at least fifty laps so far, he showed no signs of slowing down.

Harry had quietly broached the topic of Neville's extreme reaction to Theo's Ultimate Sanction with Lady Augusta. Aside from the obvious effects the spell seemed to have on Neville's mental health, it seemed increasingly likely that Neville's attitude might complicate their mutual plans for the summer. Augusta nodded and said that she was "considering options."

* * *

_**Earlier...** _

_"I must say, Lady Augusta, that you seem to be handling the effects of the Ultimate Sanction rather well," Harry had said. "If it's not rude for me to ask, are you an Occlumens?"_

_"As I have stated, Harry," she replied imperiously. "I disapprove of the studying of Occlumency both due to its social stigma and attendant risk of mental impairment."_

_"So you have, Lady Augusta. And if I may say so, the way you just dodged my question was worthy of a Slytherin."_

_The dowager turned to Harry and lifted her chin. "Thank you, Harry. The Sorting Hat did offer it as my second choice, after all."_

* * *

_**Now ...** _

Harry smiled at the memory as he continued to read Jim's letter. The Slytherin in him kept looking for subtext or hidden messages, and he was continually annoyed to not find any, but his inner Gryffindor found Jim's hopelessly direct writing style to be almost refreshing considering how many letters he'd exchanged with other Slytherins so far this summer.

" _Speaking of which_ ," Harry thought to himself as he set aside his twin's letter and pulled a fresh sheet of parchment and an Everfull Quill from his bag. After mentally composing his message, he set to writing.

_To My Good Friend Marcus Flint –_

_When last we spoke, you reminded me of your intention to return to Hogwarts for an eighth year to finish NEWTS level instruction in Transfiguration, but you were concerned about the expense. I have previously assured you that I would do everything I could to help you fulfill your academic goals, and I am happy to tell you that my efforts have borne fruit. If you would do me the courtesy of coming via Floo to Longbottom Manor on the afternoon of July 24_ _th_ _at around two o'clock, I would be delighted to introduce you to several friends who have need of a young man possessed of your particular skills and who are prepared to pay you enough to cover your expenses for the coming school year._ _Trust me_ _when I say that the job they will be offering is one for which you are particularly suited and also one of great importance to the public welfare._

_I look forward to your response._

_Your friend – Harry_

* * *

__**3 July 1993  
Shamballa  
(about two weeks earlier)**

A few hours after completing Jim Potter's initial examination, Healer Baskar introduced the Boy-Who-Lived to his trainer for his initiation into the mystical Four-Fold Path of Enlightenment – Padma Patil! Baskar and his niece explained that she had started training since she was a little girl, though she had perhaps not been as diligent as most of the initiates, particularly so after starting Hogwarts. Nevertheless, she was fully qualified to introduce Jim to the basic concepts, and Baskar thought Jim would be more comfortable taking such instruction from someone he knew than a stranger. Padma would spend the afternoon and part of the next day teaching Jim the basic relaxation katas which were designed to promote mental healing. Then, she and they would join one of the classes at the Temple of Wisdom along with a room full of acolytes who were studying a series of movements which would replicate the most basic levels of Occlumency. In the meantime, Healer Baskar would consider the best approach for allowing Jim to conceal his personal thoughts from Legilimency (a skill far beyond the beginning levels of the Path). Jim inquired after Ron, but the healer somewhat evasively said that the other boy would require some additional healing of a less physical nature but that he would be joining them in a few days.

Padma showed Jim to a locker room where he changed into the clothing provided: a yellow martial arts uniform similar to a gi or a dobok but with a small magically-reinforced pocket for holding a wand securely without any chance of it breaking. When he came out of the locker room, Padma was waiting for him in an identical outfit except that hers had two patches, one green and one blue, sewn onto the sleeve. He asked about them.

"Oh those?" she replied. "We don't change belt colors as we advance the way Muggle martial artists do. We just transfigure our patches. This one identifies me as a ninth-step acolyte of the Path of Water and a twelfth-step acolyte of the Path of Air."

Jim whistled. "Impressive."

Padma chuckled softly. "Not really. There are  _433_  steps on each of the four Paths. I started when I was seven, which is actually kind of old to begin training, and I didn't really take it as seriously as I should have. I mainly focused on Mayavani mudras that would help me in my future education. Water to improve memory and keep me calm under stress. Air to improve my intuition and analytical skills."

"Do they really help with that?"

"I'm third in our class, Jim," she said with a mischievous smile. "Draw your own conclusions."

As the two talked, Padma led Jim down a corridor to a 30x30 exercise room with mirrors covering every wall and thickly padded floors. In one corner was a brass sitar mounted on a stand. Padma stroked the sitar's strings gently and said "Water Style. First Degree. Peace and Relaxation." Immediately, the sitar started playing a gentle relaxing tune, and Jim was surprised to hear the soft sounds of waves lapping against a shore, sounds that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.

"Right, listen up, Jim Potter. Because this will be simultaneously one of the easiest and one of the hardest things you've ever had to do." Padma paused. "Mentally, that is – I'm sure it's not nearly as hard as killing a Basilisk or any of that fash. First of all, just stand still with your eyes closed and listen to the music while you think about being relaxed and at peace with yourself. Let yourself sway in time with the music if you're into that. Then, when you're ready, open your eyes and just start to move. I'll be doing the same kata beside you, and you can see us both in the mirror. Use my movements as a rough guide but you don't have to mirror me perfectly. The easy part is that you don't have to do anything yourself. Just let magic and intent guide your body. The hard part is that what I just told you to do defies everything your Taekwando teachers ever told you about executing your forms perfectly, as well as everything that you as a Gryffindor understand about ... well, about being a Gryffindor, I suppose.

Jim's forehead furrowed a bit at that last comment, but he nodded and closed his eyes for a good fifteen seconds to focus on the gentle music. Then, he opened them to see his and Padma's reflections in the mirror in front of them. Padma was already moving in time with music, her movements graceful and sinuous. In fact, Jim thought they were quite ... serpentine.

"So, um, are you actually going to teach me the moves?" he asked.

"No," the witch replied placidly. "You're going to decide that you want to feel peaceful and relaxed, and then you'll simply move. Magic will do the rest, guiding your movements as necessary ... if you can get your ego out of the way long enough."

Jim made a face. "My ego isn't  _that_  big."

She laughed. "I didn't say it was.  _Everyone_  has an ego, a sense of self-importance that stops you from letting your Magic simply lead you along the Path to where you want to go. Stop thinking so hard and just ... be."

Jim fought the urge to roll his eyes and instead started copying Padma's movements while trying to keep his head clear. It wasn't easy. Jim had come to understand what Healer Baskar had meant by his "fiery Gryffindor nature." It seemed like no matter how hard he tried to clear his mind, his thoughts were always churning and racing. Nevertheless, after about five minutes of trying to follow Padma's flowing movements, it felt like his mind was finally slowing down and his breathing was more relaxed. He also noticed to his surprise that even though he didn't actually  _know_  the movements for this kata, he was now somehow performing it perfectly in sync with his tutor even though there seemed to be no rhyme or pattern to the movements.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this," he said.

"This is the most basic pattern of Water Style, but yes, you are coming along very nicely for your first lesson."

He chuckled. "Maybe I'll be some kind of martial arts prodigy."

"And  _there's_  that Gryffindor ego. Allow me to puncture it by noting that  _four-year-olds_  pick up this technique after a few hours."

Jim blushed slightly. He was silent for another moment before speaking again. "Does this style have any, um, combat applications?"

"All of the styles do according to their nature. Water style is a passive style that focuses on dodging and redirecting attacks."

"Like Judo or Aikido?"

"I'll take your word for it. I know very little about Muggle martial arts."

He nodded and was silent for a few more minutes.

"So do  _you_  know how to fight?"

"I can defend myself," she said primly as she raised her arm gracefully over her head and then brought it back down like a wave slowly crashing against a shoreline. "Somewhere around the eighteenth or nineteenth step on the Water Path, I should learn how to do nerve strikes that paralyze my opponents, but I can already cast Petrificus Totalus with a wand, so it's not really a priority."

"After we get to a stopping point, can you show me some moves?" he said with poor attempt at being casual.

Padma sighed loudly before turning to face Jim. "Fine. We'll get this out of the way now since you obviously won't stop thinking about it until we do." She stepped back and assumed a relaxed (looking) martial arts pose. "Hit me," she said.

Jim stopped his own movements and studied the girl before looking around somewhat nervously. In the background, the enchanted sitar continued to play. "Seriously?"

She nodded. "Come on then, Mighty Gryffindor. Show me what Taekwando can do!"

The boy shrugged and assumed a fighting pose. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet for a few seconds while Padma waited calmly. Then, he lashed out with a kick to the girl's leg, though one without much force. To his surprise, Padma leaned to the side, casually dodging his kick and the next three that followed it without the slightest apparent effort. Now a bit frustrated, Jim attacked with his best roundhouse kick. This time, Padma didn't dodge but instead caught Jim's leg with her hands. Surprisingly though, she seemed to exert no force in blocking his kick. Instead, she simply placed her hands in the path of Jim's leg and then twisted them slightly. Instantly, the momentum that Jim had put into the kick changed its direction, and Jim was shocked when his whole body twisted around before he was dumped face first onto the padded floor. Instantly, he whirled around in surprise.

"How did you...?" he exclaimed. "I didn't even feel you grab my leg."

"I  _didn't_ grab your leg. I redirected the motion of your attack with a water mudra. Water style is about moving around attacks and redirecting them into other directions, much like water finding its way past obstacles."

Jim absorbed that explanation as he climbed to his feet. "So can you use it for direct attacks?"

"Not yet. Well, not with Water style, yet. I'm further along with Air style."

He smiled almost mischievously. "Show me?"

Padma rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Gryffindors," she sighed. Then, in a swift movement, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and then uncrossed them so that they were stretched out like a bird's wings. And like a bird, she was suddenly airborne nearly four feet off the ground with her legs tucked up under her and nearly even with Jim's head. In a flash, she struck with a mighty kick that hit Jim right in the solar plexus and sent him flying twenty feet across the room. He landed roughly and coughed a few times before looking up towards Padma in shock.

"Okay, -cough- I probably deserved that, but wasn't that bit of overkill? I mean, you could have really hurt me with that!" Then, he paused in confusion and felt his chest where Padma's kick had struck. It didn't even feel sore. "You  _should_  have really hurt me with that! How did you not hurt me even though you kicked me the length of a room?!"

Padma chuckled as she walked over. "Jim, if you want to study magical martial arts, you will first have to accept the fact that they are  _magical_. Muggle martial arts are governed by physics and biology. Magical martial arts are governed by  _intent_. I had no desire to hurt you, and so my kick  _didn't_ hurt you even though it did knock you across the room. In fact, to be honest, at my current step on the Path of Air, I don't think I  _can_  form the intent to harm needed to truly injure someone with just an attack. I mean, if you were at the edge of a cliff or at the top of a tall staircase, you might get hurt or even killed if I knocked you over, but I literally can't cause direct bodily harm with any of my current techniques. If I push myself this summer, then  _maybe_  I'll be high enough to intentionally injure someone with an Air attack, assuming for some silly reason I was inclined to do so. We'll see."

As she reached down to help the boy up, his face thoughtful as he considered her words.

"Now then," Padma said. "Can we please get back to the stuff you're  _supposed_ to be studying? I promised Uncle Gupta that I'd have you ready for an actual  _class_  by tomorrow afternoon."

"You really think I'll be ready to practice in front of a group by tomorrow?" Jim asked in surprise.

"Not only ready," she answered with a smirk. "You'll be head and shoulders above the rest."

* * *

_**4 July 1993** _

As he surveyed the classroom, Jim resisted the temptation to stick his tongue out at Padma. He was indeed head and shoulders above the rest of the class ... as every other student was somewhere between the ages of 5 and 7. There were about forty pint-sized martial artists in the room, all of them already performing the relaxation kata in perfect unison. And based on his embarrassing "fight" with Padma the previous day, he figured half of the little sprogs could probably beat the stuffing out of him.

In the front of the classroom, Jim saw the tall muscular monk he'd briefly encountered the day before and who was now leading the group in their exercises. The one who looked like a bald-headed European who'd been in way too many knife fights judging by the scars on his exposed arms. "Brother Chandra" (if Jim remembered the man's name properly) glanced over at the two and practically grimaced. He immediately stopped his kata, and as one, the young students snapped to attention.

"Students," he said with only a hint of harshness in his voice, "we are honored with a special guest today – Jim Potter, who is known around the world as the famous 'Boy-Who-Lived!' Please afford him every courtesy."

The children in the class, none of whom seemed to have any idea who Jim was, turned towards him and bowed in unison. Jim returned the bow clumsily and then turned back towards Brother Chandra who once again seemed to regard him with barely concealed dislike. Inexplicably, Jim had a flashback to his first day of Potions with Snape, and he desperately hoped today didn't turn into as big a fiasco.

"You and Padma may take a spot all the way in the back, Mr. Potter," Chandra said. "We wouldn't want you block the younger students' view, after all."

Jim nodded and allowed Padma to lead him to the back of the room. He noticed that even Padma was surprised by Brother Chandra's attitude.

"I get the feeling he doesn't like you, Jim," the girl whispered. "It's very strange. I've studied under him since I was a little girl, and he's always been very kind, especially with new students."

"How long has he been here?" Jim asked quietly.

The girl thought. "He started training me when I was about seven, and I think he said he'd been here for about four or five years at that point. He was from Britain originally. He must have come here after the war."

As the two took their positions and joined in the group kata, Jim studied the instructor as best he was able, with particular emphasis on the man's forearms. They were bare and free of tattoos, but that didn't necessarily prove anything. As far as Jim knew, there was only one sort of person who might have fled Britain in 1982 and who would hate the Boy-Who-Lived on sight.

A Death Eater.

* * *

_**6 July 1993** _

Death Eater or no, Brother Chandra took no harmful actions against Jim beyond constant sullen glares. It was a somewhat surprising attitude given the man's otherwise sterling reputation within the Temple. According to Padma, Chandra had mastered the 99th Step along the Path of Water, and he was nearly as high in the other three paths, a meteoric rise for someone who didn't start until his twenties. Even more surprising, Chandra had chosen to pursue all four paths in harmony instead of just one. Had he specialized, Chandra would likely be much higher ranked and have a much more influential position within the Temple of Wisdom. Regardless, the man should be the equivalent of a Level 3 Occlumens, and for him to show so much obvious anger told Jim that Chandra either didn't care about letting the boy know how much the man disliked him ... or Chandra's anger at Jim was so great that he was literally unable to Occlude it away.

On the morning of the 6th, Ron finally joined Jim and Padma in training. The other boy had spent most of the last two days in private sessions with Healer Baskar, and he was still reluctant to share too much with Jim, who elected not to push. If nothing else, Ron seemed calmer and more at peace than when they'd left Great Britain.

The two boys spent about three hours a day on Water Style. That was the only time they ever saw Padma, who was otherwise engaged in private martial arts lessons. The rest of the time, Jim and Ron spent on Parseltongue lessons, both learning more about their rare ability and, to their mutual surprise,  _teaching_  the ability to others. As Healer Gupta explained, a non-Parselmouth could actually "learn" the language by rote-memorizing a set number of Parseltongue phrases. After learning how to "pronounce" (i.e. accurately hiss) enough phrases flawlessly, the student would "harmonize" with the inherent magic of the language and thereafter be able to understand the whole language intuitively. Unfortunately, the process wasn't as easy as it sounded. First, the number of phrases that would need to be memorized ranged from several hundred to over a thousand depending on the individual learner's innate facility with magical languages. Second, the pronunciation had to be  _perfect_  which was incredibly difficult for human beings not inherently able to detect the subtle variations in snake hisses. Finally, and most problematically, Parseltongue triggered an automatic fear response in most people who didn't speak it, and according to Gupta, most students who tried to learn the language had breakdowns and gave up before properly mastering even a hundred phrases.

To hopefully improve Gupta's teaching methods, the boys were asked to spend several hours a day speaking various English sentences followed by their Parseltongue equivalents while in front of the glass globes that were used in Shamballa for recording purposes. Gupta himself had generated several hours worth of Parseltongue globes for students to listen to, but he theorized that the circumstances by which Ron and Jim had learned the language might make it "purer" than his self-taught version and thus easier for aspiring Parselmouths to master.

Last but certainly not least, the two boys spent several hours every day with Gupta himself learning what he called "Parselmagic."

"I should say that  _Parselmagic_  is not an officially recognized term, my friends," he had explained during the first session. "It's an neologism I came up with to describe the effects of saying conventional Western magical incantations in Parseltongue. Most of the time, there's no discernible difference in the effects, but some spells are more powerful when cast with Parseltongue, and a few spells are  _much_  more powerful when cast with Parseltongue. There is an anecdotal evidence of past Parselmouths casting in this way, most notably the Dark Lord from whom you two acquired your own abilities. However, as an organized field of analytical study, this is all quite new and, well, I'm apparently the only one who's studying it. Frankly, I am delighted to have other Parselmouths who can confirm my findings."

Thus far, those findings were somewhat sparse. The most important was that the more S's there were in the incantation, the more of a boost it got from being spoken in Parseltongue. By an interesting coincidence, this included a large number of both healing spells and damaging curses. Both Ron and Jim noted that it felt uncomfortable and strange to cast in Parseltongue, but Jim did notice that his Expelliarmus was more powerful when hissed. Unfortunately, that hiss added onto the end word (" _ **EXPELLIARMUSSSSS!**_ ") significantly increased the casting time to the point that Jim thought it would be less useful in a duel than casting the spell normally despite the more potent effects from a successful Parselmagic hit.

* * *

_**7 July 1993  
Healer Baskar's Office** _

The next day, Jim was called to a meeting with Gupta Baskar while Ron and Padma trained together without him.

"Good afternoon, Jim," Baskar said cheerfully as he gestured for Jim to take a seat. "I've called you in because I wanted to talk to you about your Occlumency situation. First of all, how do you feel about your Water style progress?"

Jim thought about the question. "I feel more ... relaxed, which is good I guess. I'm not sure that it's translated into better Occlumency shields."

"No, I imagine it hasn't. As we discussed during your initial interview, you have an extremely powerful Fire nature which resists Water style mental conditioning. I do want you to continue studying Water style for its mental health benefits, but I don't think it's going to help you develop psychic shields in the near future. And just to clarify, your primary goal is simply to be able block Legilimency, correct? To conceal secrets you consider too dangerous to know?"

Jim nodded.

"Well, then. I think it's time we considered alternative approaches. If you don't mind, we'll start with the simplest one first." Baskar paused. "I apologize. This might be a bit ... painful."

Jim hardly had time to respond before he felt a powerful Legilimency attack burning into his mind. For just a few seconds, he was back in the Chamber of Secrets, dying in agony from the Basilisk's bite. Then, it was over and he was slumped back in his chair as the Healer stood over him holding out a Headache Potion.

"What the hell was that?!" Jim exclaimed.

"A waste of time, I'm afraid. A small percentage of wizards can quickly develop an automagical defense to Legilimency when exposed to intentionally painful psychic assaults. For the rest of us, it just ... hurts. You are not part of that fortunate minority, but I thought it best to eliminate the possibility before moving on to the more ... complicated approach." With that, Baskar pulled out his wand and summoned his Patronus, which manifested as a silver mongoose.

"Please go to Brother Chandra and to Lily Potter and ask them both to come to my office as soon as possible." The mongoose nodded and twitched his nose before disappearing in a flash of light.

"Why do you need my Mum here?" Jim asked. " _Not to mention the guy who may be a Death Eater_ ," he thought to himself nervously.

"Because the only other shortcut to viable mental defenses I know of is one that I would not wish you to pursue without discussing the matter with your parents. As you are a minor, it would be improper for me to proceed without their consent. Tell me, Jim, what do you know about ...  _animagi?_ "

The boy stared in confusion. "Um, not much. I know a animagus is a wizard or witch who can transform into an animal without using a spell. My Transfiguration Professor back at Hogwarts is a cat animagus."

"Really?!" Baskar perked up in surprise. "How fascinating! I should like to interview her some day to see how cat psychology has affected her human personality!"

"Uh-huh," said Jim, who was distracted by the Healer's sudden excitement. "But in the meantime, what does being an animagus have to do with Occlumency?"

"Nothing," Baskar replied. "It is completely unrelated to that power.  _But_  it can provide a useful substitute. During the early phases of learning an animagus form, the wizard develops a dual-process mind. He simultaneously thinks as both a human and an animal. This provides a powerful defense against Legilimency, as the wizard can simply choose to think with his animal-mind which the human Legilimens cannot comprehend."

Jim's eyes widened in surprise. Then, he frowned in confusion. "But I thought it took a long time to become an animagus."

"Well, as I said, you don't actually need to master the skill in order to block a Legilimens. But regardless, as it happens, we are pleased to have something of an expert on the topic here at the Temple of Wisdom, one who has successfully taught a number of wizards and witches to completely master the change much more quickly than through traditional approaches."

"Brother Chandra," Jim said with a frown.

"Indeed." Baskar paused at Jim's expression. "Is there a problem between you and Brother Chandra?"

Before Jim could respond, there was a knock at the door, and then at Baskar's invitation, Brother Chandra came in, pausing only for a brief instant when he saw Jim.

"You wished to see me, Healer Baskar?" the man said coolly.

"Why yes, Chandra. I gather you've already met young Mr. Potter if only in passing. We're awaiting the boy's mother now. If she approves, I would like to ask you to take Mr. Potter on as a animagus student."

At that, Chandra looked back and forth between the Healer and the Boy-Who-Lived for an uncomfortably long time.

"No," he finally said.

"Excuse me, Brother Chandra?" Baskar asked in confusion.

"I said no, Healer Baskar. I will not train Jim Potter to become an animagus. If it is, for some unfathomable reason, necessary for his treatment to learn that skill, I will be happy to recommend former students of mine who have completed the transformation. But I will not teach this boy."

With that, Chandra turned back towards the door, while Jim shot out of his chair, uncertain as to whether he should be insulted or relieved.

"May I ask why?" Baskar persisted.

"You may ask, Healer, but I have no desire to tell. My reasons are my own." Then, Chandra yanked the door open somewhat angrily only to step back in surprise when he found Lily Potter on the other side.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Lily said, equally startled. She stepped past the monk into the room to acknowledge the Healer and her son before looking back to the man she'd almost run into. Then, her eyes widened in shock. "You!"

Chandra closed his eyes and exhaled deeply as he sought to center himself.

"Oh," said Baskar. "You two know each other?"

"Yes, Healer," Chandra said, his eyes still closed. "We do indeed."

Then, the man opened his eyes to glare at Lily Potter. For just a second, Jim thought those eyes flashed amber rather than the pale green they'd been before. And the look of disdain that the monk had been giving him was nothing compared to the obvious contempt he had for the still speechless Lily.

"It's so very nice to see you again after all these years, Lily," said Remus Lupin with a cold sneer. "By the way ...  _how's Harry?_ "

* * *

_**11 February 1982  
A quiet back booth at the Leaky Cauldron** _

"They're going to send Harry to  _the Dursleys!_ " Remus said with visible disgust.

"I know, Remus, I know. It hurts. I remember how well you and the little tyke got on." Peter sighed as he tore off piece of bread that came with the Venison and Leek Stew that was on special today. "But I think you have to accept that this may be for the best. If Little Harry is truly a squib..."

"You  _don't know_  that he's a squib! And neither do James nor Lily nor Dumbledore! He's still a baby for Merlin's sake!"

"Maybe so, my friend. But the best pediatric healers at St. Mungo's agree with Dumbledore's assessment. Harry shows no signs of magic whatsoever. I'm sorry, but I agree with Dumbledore on this. If Harry's a squib, then it's a cruelty to raise him in a magical household and particularly one that might someday be targeted for revenge by Death Eaters. Better to send him off to Muggles relatives now where he'll be safe rather than let him have the memory of magic he'll never be able to use and a wizarding inheritance that will be dangled in front of him until it gets snatched away on his eleventh birthday. And besides, if he does show magic, Petunia has promised to let Lily know so we can bring him back."

" _Petunia_!" Remus practically spat the name out. "You  _remember_ what she was like!"

"Remus," said Peter gently. "This isn't about Petunia, I think. It's about you and James."

Remus stared down at his untouched bowl of stew on table. It took all his will not to grab it and fling it against a wall. "I was willing to go Muggle if that's what it took to become Harry's guardian. To forsake the magical world forever and live as a Muggle. And James laughed. He literally laughed in my face and said ' _How could that ever work, Moony? You're a_ _werewolf_ _!_ '"

Peter stiffened and looked around quickly. "Shhh!" he hissed quietly but urgently. "I know your upset, Moony, but for Merlin's sake, let's not start a riot in the heart of Diagon Alley."

Remus scoffed. "I set up a privacy ward, Peter. I'm not stupid."

Peter relaxed but only a little. "I know you're not stupid, Remus. You've always been the smartest of us all. But ... you're emotional right now. We're all still raw about everything that's happened, and I understand that. But try to think about this sensibly. Given your condition, you'll always have difficulty maintaining employment even if no one knows the real reason why. You'll have constant health issues. You'll have to arrange for someone to take Harry when it's ... your time of the month. And if it  _ever_  gets out about your furry little problem, not only will Harry be taken from you by the Ministry and you probably  _put down like a rabid beast_ , but James and Lily might be judged unfit parents for entrusting you with him, and they could lose Jim as well." Peter took a deep breath. "And that doesn't even get into..."

Remus looked up at him sharply. "Into what?"

The rat animagus grimaced and put on a show of reluctance and embarrassment. "I think James and Lily thought you might ... that you might finally be going  _dark_."

The werewolf's nostrils flared angrily and he suppressed the urge to growl. "It's been  _sixteen years_! Sixteen years and I've never given in to the Beast!How could they possibly think such a thing?!"

Peter shrugged. "Well, let's be honest. You  _are_  rather unusual in that regard. Possibly unique. Besides ... I think... that Sirius may have put the idea into their heads. Possibly as a way of further isolating the Potters before You-Know-Who's attack."

" _Actually,_ " he thought to himself smugly, even as his face remained a mask of compassion, " _it was me putting the idea into Sirius's head first, but let's not quibble over who started that ugly rumor._ "

Remus shook his head in amazement. "I still can't believe that. Sirius Black, of all people. I've known him since I was  _eleven_. I could conceive of him doing some pretty bad things but  _never_ in the service of You-Know-Who. What happened to him?!"

"I dunno. Life, maybe?" Peter paused to take a spoonful of stew as he considered his words. "You know as well as I that the Marauders started drifting apart after that business with Snivellus and the Shrieking Shack. And then James started dating Lily at last, and Black was suddenly a third wheel." He chuckled softly. "I was never quite sure who Sirius was most jealous of – Lily for stealing away his best friend, or James for finally landing Lily right after Sirius and Marlene broke up for good. And  _then_ we graduated and went our separate ways. Regulus died around then leaving Sirius as the only viable Black heir. I was unemployed and stuck at home taking care of Mother. You were off with the werewolf packs on the continent, a fact which James and Sirius and Lily all found ... suspicious."

Remus's eyes goggled. "I was  _doing that_  at the personal request of Albus Dumbledore! He needed a spy within the packs to find out if they were going to ally with the Death Eaters! I risked my life daily on that mission!"

Peter put his hands up to placate the other Marauder. "I know, I know. But think of it from their perspective. You were living constantly with other werewolves. With  _real_  werewolves."

"I  _am_  a real werewolf, Peter."

"You know what I mean, Moony." Peter paused for a moment as if distracted. "You know, after all these years, I've never even bothered to ask. Do you  _like_  being called Moony?"

Remus was surprised by the question. "I never minded it. It was just one of Sirius's little jokes. You got used to those if you spent enough time around him."

"It was Sirius sticking you with a mean-spirited nickname to remind you of your place in the pecking order," Peter said with a trace of bitterness. "You know - like  _Wormtail_."

"I never realized you disliked the name Wormtail so much, Peter."

"Oh of course you did, Remus. I noticed long ago that when neither Padfoot nor Prongs was around, you  _always_ called me Peter. And I was always grateful." He held up his glass as if for a toast. "Here's to the bottom half of the Marauders – Moony and Wormtail. May we always remember our place ... and who our real friends are."

Remus snorted and clinked his glass against his friend's. The two each took a drink. But then, Peter grew more serious.

"But I digress. You were off with werewolf packs who generally if not universally lack your apparently unique self-control and dignity. Honestly, Remus, how did you avoid killing innocent people when you were running with the packs? How did you avoid  _eating_  innocent people?"

Remus leaned back and looked away. "With great difficulty and almost Slytherinesque cunning. But I did it. My slate is still clean. My ledger has no red in it. But that still didn't stop James and Lily from just assuming ..."

Remus paused abruptly suddenly overcome with emotion. He rubbed his face with his hands, trying to wipe away tears with as much dignity as he could muster. Peter suddenly became very interested in his venison stew which he toyed with for several seconds while the other man fought to regain his composure.

"There's nothing for me here in Britain, is there Peter?" Remus finally said.

"You've still got me, old bean," Peter said meaningfully. "Always."

"I know Peter, and thank you. But this country has too many bad memories. Perhaps a few years on the Continent will do me good."

Peter scoffed. "If there's nothing for you here in Britain where you at least have a network of friends, one of whom is quite wealthy, then there's definitely nothing for you in  _France or Germany_. None of the European Wizarding nations will treat you better than Old Blighty, and most of them will treat you worse."

Remus frowned. "Well what would you suggest, Peter?"

The other man thought for a moment. "The Far East!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Do you remember that book you found back in Fifth Year? The one about the magical city of Shamballa and the monk-wizards there who taught mystical Zen mumbo-jumbo or something like that?"

Lupin gave one of his famous long-suffering looks. "It's called the Four-Fold Path of Enlightenment, Peter. It's a perfectly legitimate approach to magic, albeit one very different from the Merlinian system."

Pettigrew waved his hand diffidently. "Whatever. Anyway, you wondered at the time if studying their techniques might allow you to gain some measure of control over your transformations. If you want a change of scenery, why not try there? You just said Dumbles owes you a favor for risking your neck during the War. Contact him and see if he can get you an introduction to the Chief Monk or Head Guru or whoever's in charge."

Remus's eyes lit up, but then he shook his head. "Peter, I don't have the funds to relocate to the other side of the world. I can't ask from Dumbledore, and I  _won't_  ask from James, not after he..."

"Then take some money from me, Remus." Peter put up a hand to stop his friend's objections. "It's  _okay_ , Remus. I've got some money to burn. I'm getting an award for helping James capture Sirius that will have some cash with it. And besides, after I turned twenty-one, I was finally able to access my father's old vault. Obviously, I'm not supplanting James as the Pampered Prince of Gryffindor, but I've got a nice little nest egg that I never knew I had."

"Your father left you an inheritance and you're just now getting it? But I thought he died when you were a small child."

Peter smiled but without any humor. "Mother did something to get it tied up until just last year. She was afraid I'd squander it, I suppose. But it's all mine now. A nice sum of Galleons ... plus a few family heirlooms hardly worth mentioning."

Remus gave Peter a quizzical look. For just a second, it seemed his fellow Marauder was struggling to suppress a giggle. Then, he shook his head. "That reminds me, Peter. I am so very sorry to hear about your mother's passing. I was in Europe at the time and knew nothing about it until quite recently. How are you holding up?"

Peter broke eye contact for a few seconds. "Oh, I'm alright, Remus. She'd been so sick for such a long time, as I'm sure you know. I'm just glad that in the end she died peacefully in her bed."

He picked up a napkin and took his time wiping his face with it. Long enough to fight down the urge to smile. " _Well, for_ _some_ _definitions of 'peacefully,' I suppose,_ " he thought to himself.

"But enough of the past, Remus. Let's talk about your future. Tell me more about ... Shamballa."

* * *

_**From Jim Potter's letter to his brother Harry ...** _

_So after that, I got kicked out of Healer Baskar's office while he, Mum, and "Brother Chandra" aka Remus Lupin talked things over. And by talked things over, I mean shouted for about twenty minutes. Apparently, Lupin was close friends with Mum and Dad back during their Hogwarts days and both our middle names come from him. Yours directly, mine in some roundabout way involving Welsh. Did you know any of that? Anyway, when you got sent to the Dursleys, he got real mad and moved all the way to the other side of the planet to study the Paths of Enlightenment, and all because Mum and Dad wouldn't let him raise you instead of that nutter Petunia and her psycho family. Unfortunately, he's got some kind of medical condition that would have made him an unfit guardian, but well, I sort of swore a vow not to tell anyone what it is. And to be fair to Mum and Dad, it really_ _is_ _the sort of condition that would make him unsuitable to be your guardian in most people's eyes._

_So anyway, after a good long shout-fest, Baskar pulls me back into the room and tells me that Brother Chandra or Mr. Lupin (I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to call him) will be teaching me about becoming an animagus. Then, Chandralupin summons a big thick book about animagi and tells me to start reading it and contact him to begin actual lessons when I've finished. And then, he just storms out. Please note that I'm learning_ _about_ _becoming an animagus and only to the extent needed to protect my mind from intrusion. I'm not actually learning to_ _become_ _an animagus because if I did, I'd have to register on something called the Conscription List or risk being sent to Azkaban. So don't go spreading any rumors that I'm actually becoming an unregistered animagus or something (wink, wink!)._

* * *

Harry laughed out loud at that. " _Seriously, Jim?! You reveal something like that in a letter and include a 'wink, wink!'_   _Good thing for you we don't hate one another at the moment._ " Later on, he would have to decide whether to burn the incriminating letter or just hide it away in the secret compartment of his trunk in case it became useful later.

In the meantime, though, the young Slytherin set his mind to Remus Lupin's mysterious "medical condition" which was so serious that it would bar him from acting as legal guardian to a child. The clues found in Jim's letter were sparse, but Harry closed his eyes and considered what he knew. Fourteen years was a long time to survive with a terminal illness, so most of those were out. Lily was letting Jim study complex magic from Lupin, so mental illness was unlikely and the guy probably wasn't a sexual predator. Then, Harry considered the few non-fatal magical illnesses he knew of along with their symptoms, and an answer immediately presented itself.

" _Of course! It's so simple!_ " he thought to himself. " _Obviously, Remus Lupin is a_ _vampire!_ "

* * *

_**16 July 1993** _

Jim knocked gently on the door to Brother Chandra's private rooms. "Enter," came the man's voice from inside. Jim opened the door and came in just in time to see the man hammering a nail into a nearby wall to hang a small picture on.

"I've, um, finished the book you gave me, Brother Chandra. I think I understand the concepts involved."

"Good," said Chandra as he walked over to the boy and retrieved the book. "I'll put it back where it belongs and fetch some tea. Please make yourself comfortable."

The man exited through a door on the other side of the room, leaving Jim alone. Still somewhat nervous, the boy walked slowly around the room before stopping in front of the two pictures that Chandra had obviously just put up. One was a magical picture that showed four teenage Hogwarts students roughhousing and waving out at him from in front of the Whomping Willow. To Jim's shock, he recognized three of them instantly: teenage versions of James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and a boy who was almost certainly Remus Lupin. The fourth one he didn't recognize, but from the context, he guessed that it was the Traitor Sirius Black. The picture hanging next to it was also a moving picture, but this one consisted of three animals: a majestic stag, a rather sinister looking black dog, and a brown rat that was perched somewhat precariously on the stag's head and holding onto its antlers for dear life. Curiously, the animals were  _also_  standing in front of the Whomping Willow, though the picture appeared to have been taken late at night. Jim was still studying the two photos when the man reentered the chamber bearing a tea tray.

"Please have a seat, Mr. Potter. I hope Oolong is satisfactory. Earl Grey is hard to come by in these parts." He set the tray down and took a seat. Jim did likewise. "Before we begin, I must ask you to take an Oath of Secrecy regarding our discussions today. Any objections?"

Jim shook his head no, pulled out his wand, and swore the oath. Satisfied, the older man poured a cup of tea for himself and his student.

"Now, I'm sure you have questions and I don't know what either of your parents has told you, so why don't we start with you asking for what information you feel you need."

Jim thought. "Um, for starters, do you want me to call you Brother Chandra or Mr. Lupin? I'm fine either way."

"I think it would be best if you called me Brother Chandra when we are in front of my fellow monks or other citizens of Shamballa. When we are alone, please call me Remus. And before we proceed any further ... I wish to apologize for my earlier treatment of you. Since we last spoke, I have spent much time in meditation evaluating and isolating my own feelings. To be perfectly blunt, you parents have done things that I consider nearly unforgivable. But you are not James Potter, no matter how startling your resemblance to him might be. It was unprofessional of me to hold you responsible for things over which you had no say, and I will endeavor to treat you as your own unique personage henceforth."

Jim absorbed all that silently. "Thank you, sir, um, Remus. I accept your apology and would be pleased if you would call me Jim." He hesitated. "I want you to know that while I still love my Mum and Dad, I also know that they've made some poor decisions especially where my brother is concerned. But if you're willing to work with me, I'll do my best to be a good student." He perked up suddenly. "And, I don't know if this helps, but if the rest of this summer works out well, I'm hoping I can talk Harry into coming back with me next summer. Then, you can finally meet him in person."

Remus's eyes widened a bit in excitement. "Yes, I would like that. Thank you, Jim. Now, do you have any other questions?" From his tone, Jim almost got the impression that Remus was prompting him about something.

The boy paused and looked around the room and over to the two photos. "That picture up there. That's ... the Marauders, right? Dad didn't tell me much about you guys, but my Uncle Pete said you were a ' _quartet of merry pranksters_.' Though I kinda got the impression that he was being sarcastic about it."

Remus nodded with a slight frown. "Some people described us as merry, others as cruel, depending upon who we targeted with our pranks. Mainly, those targets were Slytherins, and since that word had nearly become synonymous with 'Junior Death Eater' by our Fifth Year, we received a great deal more respect and adulation from our peers and even our teachers than we deserved."

"I know how that goes. This past year, I got drawn into a prank war with some Slytherins ... sort of. To say it went badly is an amazing understatement. I've sworn off pranks completely now."

"Very sensible. And much more mature than we were at your age. At the time, we saw it as striking a blow against Pureblood bigots, but of course, the truth was that we were venting our own childishness against the only acceptable targets."

"Oh?" Jim asked in surprise at that description. "How so?"

"One of our dirty little secrets is that the Marauders learned early on was what a bad idea it was to harass Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws. Hufflepuffs are all about loyalty, and if you attack one, you can expect twenty hexes a day from their friends in response. Ravenclaws are all about obscure knowledge, and if you prank one, you can expect to be pranked back with some curse that went out of fashion when Queen Anne was on the throne and that requires two weeks of research to counter. Attack a Slytherin, though? He'll just counterattack on his own or with the aid of his closest friends rather than ask for help from his House as a whole and thus show himself up as weak. Most of our conflicts were with a small coterie of Slytherins in the same year as us and who were quite free themselves with rather dark and nasty curses, and most of them did indeed go on to become Death Eaters. But I'm ashamed to say that we weren't above hexing younger Slytherins who couldn't defend themselves just because one of us overheard them refer to a classmate as a  _Mudblood_  or  _blood traitor_. It was, on the whole, unacceptable behavior on our part, and I'm glad that by Sixth Year we finally started to outgrow it."

"Was Professor ... I mean ... was Severus Snape part of that group you fought with regularly?"

"Hmm, I'd heard he'd become a Potions instructor. Certainly he had the brains for it, but I'm amazed he found the temperament. Yes, we skirmished with Snape a great deal. He was never an official part of the group I mentioned, which included future convicted Death Eaters like Rosier, Mulciber, and Avery. But he was on their periphery, rarely participating directly in their bullying but regularly supplying them with new curses and potions he'd found or invented. He was a very brilliant young man, though somewhat vindictive, especially towards James and Sirius." Remus paused. "It didn't help that your father took a strong dislike to Snape literally from the first day they met on the Hogwarts Express. Jealousy over Snape's friendship with your mother, I suppose. How is he as a teacher?"

Jim shrugged. "Kind of a jerk to be honest. He hates me and is happy to let me know it every class. On the bright side, Mum tutors me in Potions during the Summer break, and she's pretty confident I'll be able to pull an O on my OWL even though I'm barely getting A's in Snape's class."

Suddenly, Jim looked a bit embarrassed. "I called him Snivellus during my very first Potions class. Dad sort of encouraged me to do it if I thought he was treating me unfairly."

"Mm-hmm," said Remus who was torn between being scandalized and amused. "And how did that work out for you?"

"Lost a lot of points. My whole house got mad at me. Professor McGonagall and Mum both got mad at me. I ended up in the Headmaster's office with both my parents. It ... was a bad day."

Jim looked around the room, suddenly uninterested in maintaining eye contact. He still owed Snape an apology since, alas, he didn't die in the Chamber of Secrets when he was supposed to and thus leave Harry to deliver it for him posthumously. Then, his attention was drawn to the other picture which Remus had deliberately placed on the wall next to the one of the Marauders. He looked around again. There were no other pictures on any of the walls.

"So ... the Marauders. Did any of  _them_  become animagi?"

Remus gave Jim a funny look as he took a sip from his tea cup. "Why, Jim, whatever would make you ask a question like that?"

"Well, for one thing, you've got a picture of the Marauders on the wall next to a picture of three animals standing around in front of the Whomping Willow. And I'm pretty sure you don't normally see a rat perched on the head of a stag that's calmly standing next to a grim."

"Well, Jim,  _you_  might suspect that those animals are actually transformed animagi, but I couldn't possibly speculate on such things," Remus said with an odd smile.

Jim sat for several seconds while quietly considering Remus's peculiar statement. Suddenly, he really wished Harry was with him because he was certain his older twin would instantly understand the subtext. Then, it hit him – at least three of the Marauders actually had become animagi, and Remus had sworn an oath not to reveal it, one he was now trying to work around.

"Well, then," Jim said slowly. "Speaking  _hypothetically_ , if those three animals  _were_  animagi and also Marauders, how would I be able to tell who was who?"

"An interesting question. All animagi have Tells in their animal forms – markers that give a hint as to their true identities. Perhaps you could try examining the picture more closely."

With that, Remus rose and went to a nearby drawer from which he produced a magnifying glass that he handed off to the boy. Intrigued, Jim studied the photo of the three animals more carefully through the glass. After a moment, he let out a gasp. Though it was hard to tell with the animals moving around, he was certain that the majestic stag had tiny circles around each of its eyes, circles that reminded him of his father's glasses that were so similar to the ones he wore himself. Then, he studied the rat that had attached itself to the stag's antlers and noticed that there was a thick patch of hair on the back of the rat's head that reminded him of the unfortunate mullet that his teenage godfather was wearing in the other photo.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that the stag was James Potter and the rat was Peter Pettigrew."

"And the grim?"

Jim studied it for a few minutes carefully and finally noticed that the grim had pale gray eyes unlike Lupin's green ones. "That's Sirius Black."

Remus laughed. "Well done! And as a reward for guessing properly, I will now answer any specific questions you have about how the Marauders became animagi, since I am no longer bound by that silly Unbreakable Vow we all swore as Third Years."

Jim did a double-take. "You swore an Unbreakable Vow?"

"Yes, to never reveal to anyone else the fact that James, Peter, and Sirius were animagi."

"But you just told me!"

"No, I did not. I simply left some clues laying about that you were able to use to deduce the truth."

Jim stared at Remus for several seconds in confusion until the man finally grinned at him.

"It was a  _very_ poorly drafted Unbreakable Vow, as it turned out. A foolish venture for thirteen-year-old boys to engage in, though probably not in the top ten most foolish things we did while at Hogwarts."

The boy accepted that with some difficulty.  _An Unbreakable Vow_?  _While they were just thirteen?_  And he thought his own exploits so far had been ridiculous. Jim shook his head to clear it.

"So why did my dad end up a stag and my godfather a rat?"

"The animagus doesn't choose his form. Magic does. In so choosing, Magic is guided by a number of factors, many of which are not easily categorized. It is known that family history, personality, and even one's own name play a role. Sirius's surname was Black, and his given name was derived from the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, a star which is also known as the Dog Star. So Magic decided that his spirit animal would be a large black dog. Peter's connections were more nebulous, but the name Pettigrew, which suggests "little" and "grow" when viewed symbolically, implies that his spirit animal would be something relatively small. That said, he was rather stout at that age. If Peter had been small and thin instead, it's entirely possible that his spirit animal would have been much bigger since his human form would be the small one that grew to a larger size."

"For what it's worth, it looks like Uncle Pete has lost weight since then. And gotten a much better haircut." Jim glanced back to the picture of the animals and focused on the stag. "And my dad?"

"James was an interesting case. He had the toughest time mastering the transformation despite the fact that he was a prodigy at Transfiguration. He had no personal symbolic connections to any animals. Not even the Potter coat of arms had any animal-themed heraldry that might have forged a connection. He was on the verge of giving up when he had a breakthrough from a remarkable and unexpected source – Lily Evans!"

"My Mum? Did she become an animagus?"

"Not to my knowledge.  _But_  a few months into our Fifth Year, Lily mastered the Patronus Charm because she'd heard it would be worth a great many points on our DADA OWLs, and her Patronus manifested as a beautiful silvery doe. And then, not a week later, James overcame his block and was able to transform into his stag form."

That information astounded the boy. "Wait a minute. My dad was only able to become an animagus after he figured out what form would most impress my mum?!"

"An oversimplification, but not much of one. James had been deeply infatuated with Lily since the day they met, but it was completely one-sided.  _Toe-rag_  was her favored nickname for James until Sixth Year when she finally consented to go out on a date with him, and over the next two years she overcame her animosity and came to care for him a great deal. I think learning that Lily's Patronus was a doe – and one's Patronus and animagus form overlap more often than not – caused James to subconsciously believe that a form which was in some way mated to her spirit animal might bridge the gap between them. Since they  _did_ end up getting married, who's to say he wasn't right."

Jim seemed almost dazed by all that. He'd always viewed his father – Lord Potter for as long as he'd been alive – as such a dominant figure in his life. It was startling to realize the extent to which he'd once followed his mother around like a love-sick puppy.

"So what's your animagus form? And why aren't you in the picture? Or do I have to guess that too?"

Remus grew more serious and took another sip of tea before setting his cup down. Then, he rubbed his hands together nervously, surprising himself with his sudden tension. It had been a long time, after all, since he'd actually had to admit his secret to anyone else who didn't already know it from some other source.

"I'm not in the second picture, Jim, because I was the one who took it. And I don't have an animagus form of my own." He took a deep breath. "I can't have one ... because being an animagus and being a werewolf are mutually exclusive."

Jim froze. "Erp?" he finally said.

"Yes, Jim. I am a werewolf. I was bitten at the age of four by Fenrir Greyback on the night of the full moon, and I have transformed every full moon since. Your father figured out my secret when we were Third Years. That was the impetus for him, Sirius, and Peter to become animagi because all animagi are immune to lycanthropy. In fact, a transformed werewolf will not even attack an animagus whether in human or animal form unless provoked, and if the animagus's form is large enough and imposing enough, it's actually possible for the animagus to  _herd_ a werewolf away from potential victims."

There was a lengthy silence.

"You're ... a werewolf," Jim finally said while swallowing hard. "And you were a werewolf at Hogwarts and my dad knows all about it." Remus nodded yes. "Does my mom know?"

"Yes. Actually, she was the very first to figure it out though she never told a soul, not even your father who figured it out on his own. Dumbledore and the Hogwarts teachers, of course, all knew before I started school. Being a Muggleborn, Lily associated the signs of lycanthropy I displayed, mainly always being sick on the day after the full moon, with what she knew of werewolves from Muggle films and books. She didn't realize that the most well-known characteristic of true werewolves was the one I lacked – a violent and homicidal disposition even when not transformed. And since I  _did_  lack that characteristic, all of my classmates other than Lily and eventually James, Sirius, and Peter completely discounted the possibility of my being a werewolf."

"Because you  _weren't_ a violent homicidal maniac?" Jim asked with a tight voice.

"Correct," said Remus simply.

"Uh-huh. That's ... that's good to know, I guess. And how many people here at Shamballa know you're ... you know?"

"Oh, several dozen I should think, though they're all quite protective of my privacy. Albus Dumbldore arranged for my introduction to the city's leaders, and the Kampo Rimpoche – he's the leader of the monastery that took me in – has known from the start. The monks all ensure that I'm locked up tight on the nights of the full moon and that I receive proper treatment when I wake up the next day. You see Jim, I came to this place in the hopes that the Four-Fold Path of Enlightenment might be the key to controlling my changes, and the monks were just as eager to see if their techniques could help me. So far, they haven't, but both the monks and healers who watch over me still have hope, as do I. More importantly, though, the Path has brought me the serenity to accept my condition even as I continue to study and research and meditate and do everything else I can to overcome that affliction. I have been a werewolf for twenty-nine years, Jim, and while transformed I have never taken a human life nor caused injury to any human other than myself." He held out his scarred arms. "These scars are from my youth, from those days when the Beast was angry that I would never let it take control. Nowadays, I don't even eat  _meat_  anymore, and I can feel the Beast sulking bitterly every time I dig into a bowl of rice, but it can do nothing more to harm me or anyone else."

Jim crooked an eyebrow at that. Remus smiled back at him bashfully.

"Well, so long as I remain contained on that one night of the month anyway. I don't know why I alone seem immune to the spiritual corruption that accompanies the curse of lycanthropy. If I knew, I'd bottle it in a heartbeat and offer it up to save all those others who've been lost to this foul condition. But after nearly three decades, I still have no explanation. So I do what I can as a teacher and advisor to those who need either teaching or advice. And now that I've told you the truth, you can decide whether you still want to learn from me. Despite my earlier hostility, I tell you know that I am eager to teach you how to become an animagus and anything else you want to learn. Because you are the son of my former friends. Because you are the godson of one who I hope is  _still_  my friend. And because you are the brother of someone who I regret not being able to raise as my own. But most of all, because you have come to me for learning and I am a teacher. So, do you still want to learn what I have to show you?"

Jim looked at the former Marauder for a long time as he processed everything Lupin had said. Then, he took a deep breath and summoned his Gryffindor courage. "When do we start?"

* * *

_**15 DAYS UNTIL AZKABAN** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: It was almost cruel, I know, to have Peter Pettigrew be the one to say "Always" (and especially since he was completely insincere), but Snape doesn't have that motivation anymore and anyway it was so delicious a subversion that I couldn't resist.
> 
> AN 2: Considering how deeply traumatized Remus is by his Lycanthropy and how full of self-loathing he is in canon over being a werewolf, I am really the first to think that the Marauders were kind of assholes for giving him the nickname Mooney?
> 
> AN 3: It always bugged me that fiery strong-willed Lily would develop a Patronus that was just the female version of James's stag. So I thought it would be fun to flip the script. Lily got her doe Patronus first (very minor spoiler: the doe's name is Faline, which was Bambi's girlfriend), and then her admirer/stalker James claimed a stag as his spirit animal in response.
> 
> AN 4: An unusual number of people over the last few months have been asking complicated questions in Guest reviews on FF.Net. Please sign up for an account and leave reviews I can respond to or else IM me. I generally do not respond to Guest reviews in Author Notes and will never do so if it's potentially a spoiler.


	5. Prelude (Ron)

**CHAPTER 5: Ron Weasley and the Secret of the Naga**

__**4 July 1993**  
3:00 p.m. (local time)  
Healer Gupta Baskar's Office  
The Temple of Healing, Shamballa

Ron sat quietly in the healer's office and tried not to show his nervousness. He was a Gryffindor, after all, and if he couldn't stop himself from being afraid, he could at least try not to show it. Jim had given him a look of quiet encouragement as the two passed by one another a few minutes before. Apparently, Jim's "examination" had gone well. Of course, Jim hadn't experienced months of possession by the teen-aged specter of a not-so-deceased Dark Lord, so Ron was less optimistic about his own mental health.

Healer Baskar had explained the process patiently before commencing. He would look into Ron's eyes and through them into Ron's mind and soul. He reassured Ron that he was under a Healer's Oath and would not reveal any of Ron's personal secrets without his consent, but unlike with Jim (to whom the healer had given advice on how to hide deeply personal matters), Baskar made it clear that he would need to fully inspect Ron's psyche to determine if Tom Riddle had damaged him in any way and, more importantly, whether any vestige of Tom Riddle still remained. With that in mind, it was a rather tense ten minutes that Ron spent quietly staring into the deep piercing eyes of the mind healer.

Finally, Baskar leaned back in his chair and blinked rapidly for a few seconds. "Well, Mr. Weasley, let us get the most pressing matter out of the way. I am quite confident that there is only one mind inside your head, and it is indubitably yours. I see no signs that the Riddle persona has any active presence at all within your mind."

Ron almost smiled when the subtext hit him. "Active?" he said with a swallow. "What about ... inactive?"

Baskar sighed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Weasley. To be 100% honest, I do see ... remnants of the Riddle spirit. Faint signs of the psychic architecture it created over the course of several months. I believe that they will fade over time, but they are still present right now." He paused and then frowned. "To be honest, your case is most unusual. Indeed, probably unique. I have participated in many exorcisms and in both the destruction of possessing spirits and the treatment of former possession victims. But as far as I am aware, yours is the only case in which the possessing spirit was completely destroyed while still in the act of maintaining the possession instead of being removed first. I suspect that is how you acquired your Parseltongue abilities which otherwise can only be acquired either through genetic inheritance or years of study. It is possible that you may have gained other benefits from this experience And, to be blunt, perhaps some negative traits as well. But I see no signs of such now and no evidence that this residual architecture is in any way detrimental to you."

Ron was quiet for several seconds. "Speaking purely hypothetically, if ... if Tom Riddle came back somehow, could he affect me? Control me?"

Baskar's eyes widened in surprise. "My understanding was that the Tom Riddle entity was a residual soul fragment from a man who had died many years before. Do you have reason to think Riddle is still alive? Or exists in some spiritual form more powerful than his diary-self?"

Ron hesitated. Tom Riddle was the true name of Voldemort, and he definitely still existed ... sort of. Jim had told Ron everything he knew about what had happened down in the Chamber of Secrets. But Riddle's connection to Voldemort was still protected by the Fidelius Charm, and when the diary that had served as Secret Keeper was destroyed, Jim and Harry Potter jointly became the new Secret Keepers since they were the only ones (as far as anyone knew) who had been told the Secret directly by its previous Keeper. The two brothers had been advised to remain silent for now by Dumbledore and Rufus Scrimgeour, but even if they hadn't, Ron himself  _couldn't_  tell anyone else because he  _wasn't_  the Secret Keeper.

"Like I said," he finally answered, " _hypothetically._ "

"Hmm," Baskar replied with Ron thought might be a hint of suspicion. "Well then,  _hypothetically_  I honestly don't know. There is no precedent I'm aware of for a  _living_  person to possess someone in this manner. There might be some sort of of inchoate connection, but I could not guess what form it might take if it became active. I can only counsel you to strive to maintain constant awareness of your own thought patterns. Your Wu Xi Do studies should help with that. But at the moment, I can say categorically that I perceive no indications of any foreign thoughts affecting your own."

Ron relaxed visibly at that.

"So with that out of the way," Baskar continued. "Let's talk about what Tom Riddle did to you and how he could affect you so deeply. Possession takes many forms: from periods of total control which you would perceive as blackouts to periods when you were still in control of yourself but were influenced on a more subtle level. Your memories indicate that initially Riddle relied on the latter. That is, you remained self-aware most of the time but were the subject of powerful emotional bursts that overcame your reason and caused you to act in ways that Riddle desired."

Ron nodded but said nothing.

"I bring this up now, Mr Weasley, because I think it is important for you to understand one thing. The things you said or did while under Riddle's influence  _were not your fault._  I know people have undoubtedly told you that, but it is clear from my assessment of your mental state that you don't quite believe it. You remember  _those_  events. You remember saying and doing those damaging things. And Riddle's influence was too subtle for you to realize that the emotions you felt which led you to say and do those things were unnatural. So it is understandable that you would feel guilt for those things even though you were not truly at fault. I promise you, Mr. Weasley – viewing your memories from an external perspective, I can clearly see when the unnatural emotional forces came into play and overcame your reason. My goal for our next several sessions will be to work through your memories together so that I can point out to you those occasions when your will was overcome and help you to understand why you acted as you did and why you should not feel responsible for it. This will be a lengthy procedure, but for today, let us take one particular instance and examine it together."

Ron sat impassively for a moment. "Okay," he finally said. "Where do you want to start?"

"At the beginning. The first time your memories clearly show the signs of external influence was last September on the first day of classes at Hogwarts. Your mother sent you a Howler." Baskar frowned. "Very nasty those. I remember students getting them from my own time at Hogwarts. But I digress. You immediately felt feelings of embarrassment and shame, but I could also detect the emerging influence of Riddle as he reconfigured those emotions into feelings of resentment towards your family and especially towards your younger sister, Ginny."

The boy's forehead furrowed at that. "Why would Riddle want to turn me against Ginny?"

"Oh, I doubt he cared about her at all. He was still feeling you out at that point. Working to find which buttons he could push to provoke a response in you. Sibling rivalry and latent feelings of jealousy towards a younger sister, and especially one you perceive as being favored, are perfectly natural for a young person of your age and background. But Riddle heightened those normal feelings into a deep paranoia which resulted in that unpleasant confrontation between you and your sister later that night. You became openly resentful towards her because of the idea that had been put into your head suggesting that your parents only had so many children due to a desire for a daughter and that this was the reason for a perceived neglect of you by them. Now then, compare how you felt that night to how you feel now. Do you still believe that your parents only had you because they were holding out for a girl no matter how many pregnancies it took?"

The boy blushed deeply and looked away. He sat silently for a long moment. "Did ... did you only look into my memories from when I was possessed?" he finally asked in a quiet voice.

The question surprised Baskar. "Yes. Were there other memories that were relevant to this question?"

Ron took a deep breath and looked back towards the healer. "I  _know_  that my parents only had me because they were aiming for Ginny. I'm not ... mad about it anymore. I understand why they did what they did. But ... I know for  _a fact_  that they were holding out for a little girl."

The answer took Baskar aback. "And how would you know that, Mr. Weasley?"

The boy paused and rubbed his fingers across his eyes.

"Because my father told me so."

* * *

__**The Hogwarts Infimary  
10 May 1993  
9:30 a.m.**

Ron's eyes fluttered open as sunlight streamed down from the Infirmary's windows. He blinked and wiped the sleep from his eyes before looking around the room. It was the morning after Jim had rescued him from the Chamber of Secrets. It was also the morning after he had tried to hurl himself from the Astronomy Tower only for Jim to rescue him a second time. As he looked around, Ron noticed that Jim was lying in the bed opposite his own on the other side of the room still asleep, and he was surprised to see that his father was asleep in a chair next to his bed. At the sound of Ron moving about, Arthur's eyes fluttered open and he smiled at his youngest son.

"Ah, good morning, son," Arthur said quietly but warmly. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess," Ron said. "Where's Mum? I'd have figured that she'd be here and you'd be at work."

"I took a few days off so that I could be here with you as well. Your mother's here, but she stepped out to grab some breakfast from the kitchens." Arthur paused and grimaced slightly. "You, um, ... you gave us a bit of a scare last night, son."

Ron didn't respond to that. When he and Jim had returned to the hospital the previous night, they'd made up a story about how Ron had just "stepped out for some fresh air" and Jim had come with him. It seemed obvious that no one believed them, but everyone was so uncomfortable with the possibility of Ron being suicidal that once Madam Pomfrey put a tracking ward on the boys to make sure they didn't get out of bed without her knowing, the other Weasleys let the matter drop.

The father and son made sparse small talk for a while, but it was obvious that Arthur had something to say. Finally, he pulled out his wand and cast a privacy ward.

"Ron, we need to talk about something. Actually, I suppose we need to talk about a lot of things, but one in particular. Your mother and I had a long talk with your sister and brothers about everything that's been happening this year. And especially with Ginny. It took some doing – I promise you, she did  _not_  want to go back on her word to you – but she finally told us about that ...  _conversation_ you two had the night after her Sorting. The one where you talked about Ludmilla Weasley and about Ginny's seventh birthday party ... and about how you believed that your mother and I set out to have as many children as it took to get a daughter..."

Ron's face reddened in embarrassment. "Dad, that wasn't me. That was the diary talking. It wasn't ..."

"You were right," Arthur interrupted.

" ... what?" the boy said in a small voice.

The man looked down at the floor in embarrassment. Then, after he'd collected himself, he began his tale. After Ludmilla Weasley and Meleager Malfoy ran off together, it began a feud between the houses of Weasley and Malfoy that lasted literally until Lucius and Arthur's handshake the day before. The story handed down from Weasley father to Weasley son was that the Malfoys somehow used forbidden magic to curse the Weasleys into continual ruination. The exact form of ruin varied from generation to generation though the failure to produce any daughters after Ludmilla was common to every surviving Weasley. For Arthur's father, his ruin had been drink. For his grandfather, it had been gambling. Arthur himself carefully avoided those vices other than an occasional galleon spent on the Daily Prophet Prize Draw, but he had struggled continually through school and ended up as the Ministry's resident "expert" on Muggle Affairs simply because Muggle Studies had been a notoriously easy class during his student days and it had been the only NEWT for which he'd scored an O. A Muggle-related job was literally the only form of Ministry employment open to him, particularly since the Death Eaters in those days actively targeted Muggle-philes in the Ministry as blood traitors and so appointment to any office in the Muggle Affairs division was widely considered to be a death sentence. By the time Ron was born, Arthur had risen to become Assistant Director of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department simply through bloody attrition.

"My father never told me about the family curse until after I'd already married Molly. I told her at once, of course. I figured she'd want to annul the marriage. We hadn't had Bill yet, and she was entitled under those circumstances. But you know your mother – once she sets herself on a course, she won't ever back down. She took her dowry money out of Gringotts and spent it all on a seer who gave her a prophecy about how to break the curse. The seer said that if we had seven children and the last one was a witch, the curse would be broken. So we talked and argued and even shouted a bit before I finally gave in. No matter what it took, we would have seven children even if it meant that we'd struggle financially for all of our lives and theirs. And sure enough, Ginny came in at number seven."

Ron nodded as he absorbed all that. "So Ginny really did break the family curse. That was why you treated...?" He trailed off, suddenly embarrassed at his own jealousy.

"Why we treated her better than you and your brothers? It's alright, Ron. Looking back, I can understand how you'd feel that way, and I am truly sorry for it. But the thing you must understand is this. You're mother and I weren't overprotective of Ginny because we thought she'd broken the curse. It was because we thought she  _hadn't_."

Ron stared at his father in confusion, and Arthur closed his eyes for a few seconds as he dredged up painful memories.

"I know you talked with Ginny about her seventh birthday party and about the magic cake with the moving decorations. The ones that showed Jim Potter flying around on a dragon. Well, you see, the truth of it was ... we  _didn't_  buy Ginny a magic cake. We couldn't have afforded such a luxury back then. Your mother did those decorations herself, but they were ordinary decorations made from butter cream and food coloring and love. It was  _Ginny_  who animated the decorations with accidental magic. Her  _first_  accidental magic."

Ron stared in shock as he considered the implications of a witch who showed no magic before the age of seven.

"Up until that point, Ginny had shown no magic at all. You don't remember it because, well, I supposed because the twins kept you preoccupied – which is another thing we'll be having a family meeting over – but by the time Ginny was five, your mother and I were resigned to the fact that Ginny was most likely a squib. We had to sit down with Bill, Charlie, and later Percy when they started to notice and make them promise not to speak of it until Ginny turned eleven and we'd know for sure. You see, the prophecy Molly had paid for, after all, had only specified that if our seventh child was a  _witch_ , it would end the curse. I figured that was how the curse had finally ruined me like it did my ancestors – by tricking me into have more children than I could afford in the hopes that it would all magically work out instead of leaving my children destitute. That was the real reason we were so overprotective of Ginny. Your mother loved her cousin Steven dearly, and when the Prewitts sent him away for being as squib, it hurt her a great deal. So we resolved that whatever it took, Ginny would never feel unloved or mistreated on account of her lack of magic."

Suddenly, Arthur's face lit up almost reverentially. "But then, on the morning of her seventh birthday ... it was like a miracle. She had wished for a magic cake ... and the cake  _became_  magical. Not just magical, but with a complex animation, a continuous transfiguration effect that would have been hard for NEWT-level students! And she'd done it on accident! Your mother and I were just getting over the shock of that when the school owls arrived with the news that Bill had been made Head Boy and that Charlie was both a Prefect and Quidditch captain. I should have said something then, but I was too overcome with shock. I couldn't quite believe that the curse might be broken just like that. But sure enough, later that afternoon, I got word from Billy McElroy that he was taking retirement and was going to nominate me to take his place as head of the department! Honestly, it was like a dam bursting! All the good fortune our family had been denied for centuries coming to us at once."

Ron stared at his father in amazement as the man continued with a strange urgency. "A few nights later, I told Bill and Charlie everything I just told you. And I told them something else as well.  _Don't settle_. For far too long, us Weasleys have had to struggle for everything we could get only to lose it all and have to start all over again. But I truly believe that's over for us now. My children will choose their own futures from now on, and I think you will  _all_  go on to do great things.  _That_  is why Bill decided to go work for the goblins as a curse-breaker instead of just settling for a Ministry position.  _That_  is why Charlie applied for that fellowship with the dragon sanctuary that eventually turned into a full-time job. I was going to tell Percy everything this summer, but I see now that I was wrong. I should have told  _all of you_  the truth before, but I'm telling you now. Because maybe if you'd known all this a year ago, you might have been better able to fight off that damnable diary. It was my fault for not seeing that you might feel insecure in comparison. I just hope one day you can forgive me for it."

Ron opened his mouth to respond, to reassure his father that he was forgiven, but no words came out.

* * *

_**Healer Baskar's Office  
3:30 pm (local time)** _

"And did you forgive your father?" Baskar asked gently.

"Of course!" Ron said forcefully. "How could I not?!" Baskar crooked an eyebrow at him, and Ron finally sighed and shook his head from side to side. "Yeah, okay. It took a little longer. At first, I was still in shock over everything. But after I got home from school, me and Dad and Mum had another longer talk. This one had a lot of crying and a lot of hugging."

He paused. "My Mum is a big crier ... and an even bigger hugger. Sometimes, that gets annoying, but other times..." His voice trailed off but his smile indicated that sometimes he didn't mind hugs at all. "She even made a point of burning her ' _Howler Quill_ ' right in front of me! I felt sure she'd want to hang onto that at least until the Twins graduated. Since then, we've been fine."

The healer nodded. "And what do you think now of your father's advice that you  _don't settle_? Has it changed your career goals?"

Ron shrugged. "I dunno. I honestly didn't have any career goals before that. I'm scraping by in school. I'm passing everything, but it's a struggle. If I weren't pushing myself so hard to try and keep up with Jim, I'd probably be in danger of flunking out."

"What are your favorite classes?"

"Um, Transfiguration, probably. The reading's tough, but there aren't a lot of wand movements to learn like in Charms and not really any incantations at all. Herbology and Astronomy are okay, I guess."

Baskar studied the boy for a few seconds. Then, he rose and moved over to a bookshelf from which he extracted a old textbook. Flipping the pages as he moved, he returned to his chair and placed the book on the table next to his patient. "Take a look at this Charm for a few seconds and then try to perform it."

Ron looked dubiously back and forth from the Charm description to Baskar's face. The healer offered no guidance, not even to give the spell's name so that Ron would know how to pronounce it. There was a pronunciation guide, but as with his Charms texts back home, Ron thought it was complete gibberish. "Sam-Sara," he said experimentally, as if the incantation were the names of a man and a woman.

" _Sam-SAR-a_. The second syllable is strongest and longest, and it rhymes with  _tar_ and  _mar_."

Ron flushed and tried again. Then, he studied the symbols below the name that described the proper wand movements. He moved his own wand experimentally, trying to match the descriptions in the book, but it was a complicated pattern and the symbols almost seemed to swim before his eyes. Finally, after almost a moment of study, Ron tried the Charm. Nothing happened, and the boy was disappointed but not particularly surprised.

Baskar, who had been watching the boy intently, spoke up. "Try watching me.  _ **SAMSARA.**_ " He executed the wand movements flawlessly, and a small ball of blue light materialized at the tip of his wand. Ron asked him to perform the Charm twice more before trying again himself, and this time, the same blue light emerged from his own wand.

"Cool. So what does Samsara do? It looks like a Lumos but not as bright."

"Oh, it's not just a light, Mr. Weasley. Samsara is actually a very powerful healing Charm: the Life Support Charm. It allows your wand to act as a direct conduit for your life force. By using the Charm and then touching your wand to another person who is critically injured or otherwise nearly at the point of death, you can use your own life energies to sustain their own, delaying death long enough for proper healing to be applied."

Ron smiled broadly. As dangerous as Jim's life seemed to be, that might be a good spell to know.

"But I had another reason for asking you to learn it, Mr. Weasley. I wanted to see through your eyes how you went about the process of learning a new spell. May I look into your mind again?"

He nodded, and Baskar once again made use of his Legilimency. After just a few seconds, he withdrew from Ron's mind looking satisfied. "As I thought. Mr. Weasley, you suffer from a learning disability."

Ron's brow furrowed at the unfamiliar term. "Yeah, well, I said I wasn't doing well in school. Is 'learning disability' fancy healer-talk for 'dumb'?"

Baskar made a face of mild consternation. "It most certainly is not, Mr. Weasley! On the contrary, my assessment indicates that you are actually quite intelligent but are being sabotaged by a neurological condition that prevents you from properly absorbing information that you read and study. That much was obvious when I compared how well you performed the Charm after reading the instructions versus how well you did after watching me cast the spell just three times."

"Neuro...logical?" he said somewhat dubiously.

"Yes. Language here in Shamballa unfortunately renders the condition's name as  _Uneven Thinking_ , a rather inaccurate description based on a translation of a very old Sanskrit name. A healer back in Britain might call it  _Mordenkainen's Disjunction_ , while Muggle medicine recognizes a similar condition called  _dyslexia_. The condition manifests in many different forms, but most often, it interferes with your ability to read or otherwise interpret written symbols. You might find that words and letters reverse themselves or change order. You might have difficulty in pronouncing uncommon words or interpreting the symbols in your textbook that show how to perform wand movements or in comprehending the measurements and preparation times of potion recipes. That is why I asked you to try the Life Support Charm. The written notations of its wand movements contain the sort of complex markings that often trigger dyslexic results and so it's a good diagnostic tool. The condition is very rare among wizard-folk but well-documented. It is also usually an inherited condition. Tell me, Mr. Weasley, do either of your parents display any of the symptoms I've described?"

Ron sat very still as he thought about how is father, supposedly a Ministry expert on Muggle matters, still consistently mispronounced words like  _ekeltricity_  and  _fellytone_. "... maybe?" He said in a very soft voice. "So, um, how do you treat this ...  _dixlessia_?"

"Dyslexia. And I'm afraid there is no cure. The condition is a part of your brain's basic wiring. You can no more permanently fix it with a potion or a Charm than you could improve your friend Jim's eyesight so that he wouldn't need glasses. His own body recognizes his vision problems as normal, and so his magic inevitably works to change his body back to its default condition. Dyslexia is the same.  _But_ , now that we know you have the condition, there are a number of treatment options and techniques to help you stay aware of it and overcome the limitations it places on you."

Ron's mouth quivered a bit, and he quickly wiped his eyes. Suddenly, he vividly remembered every time he'd embarrassed himself by mispronouncing a Charm's incantation. Every time he'd ruined a potion because he'd somehow misunderstood the instructions on Snape's blackboard. The way it had taken him six tries to properly say  _Wingardium Leviosa_  (and if it had been anyone else but Jim who'd finally corrected him, he'd have probably exploded in frustration). The idea shook him to the core – after all these years, was it really possible that he wasn't actually ...  _stupid_?

* * *

_**6 July 1993  
The Weasley Burrow** _

"And what,  _pray tell_ , does a Ministry auror want with one of my sons?" Molly Weasley asked in a cold voice as she fixed Auror Proudfoot with a glare that would have been worthy of Alastor Moody himself.

For his part, Proudfoot grimaced nervously and adjusted his collar. It seemed obvious that he was fresh from the Academy, and if he was so visibly intimidated by an angry mother, one might wonder how he'd ever handle an actual dark wizard.

"I assure you, Madam Weasley..."

" _Mrs._  Weasley!"

"Ah, yes, right! Mrs. Weasley, of course! Well, I assure you that your son George has done nothing wrong. I just have a few questions for him about the work he was doing for Gilderoy Lockhart. You see, Lockhart himself may be stuck for life in the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo's, but the Ministry is still interested in finding out exactly what he was up to. And in the course of the investigation, it was brought to our attention that he might have provided your son with..." Proudfoot paused and took a deep breath. "... explosive runes."

"HE WHAT?!" Molly shrieked so loudly that despite himself the young auror took two steps back. "GEORGE! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!"

Barely a second later, George Weasley, who had obviously been listening in from upstairs (along with Fred, Percy, and Ginny), came down bearing a nervous expression.

"George!" Molly exclaimed with a tiny bit less fury. "What's this about explosive runes?!"

George swallowed. "Well, Mum, I was on Lockhart's research team devoted to experimental portkeys, and he gave me a sheet of explosive runes to study. He wanted to see if you could reconfigure them to supercharge a portkey so that it could penetrate anti-portkey wards."

"Explosive runes!" Molly huffed, her hands on her hips. "To a Fourth Year!" Proudfoot winced slightly at the woman's fury.

"Mum, I was careful with them and nothing bad happened." George paused at that. Inwardly, he thought to himself " _Well, nothing other than my possessed little brother stealing a copy and using it to try to kill people,_   _but I reckon I shouldn't mention that in front of the auror._ "

Then, before Molly could get started again, George barreled forward. "And to be honest, it's a good thing he did, too! Or else I wouldn't have recognized them with they were used to blow up all the Mandrakes at Hogwarts. Harry Potter would have died in front of me, and me and Fred might well have died with him."

George then cringed at Molly's shocked expression. He'd forgotten that with all the confusion surrounding Ron's possession, the family had not spent much time discussing his own brush with death, and his mother was only now realizing how narrowly he escaped. Luckily, Proudfoot stepped in to divert her.

"I've read the report on how you saved young Potter, Mr. Weasley. It was very impressive. You're a credit to Gryffindor." The boy smiled and ducked his head at the praise.

"However," the man continued, "I'm afraid the Ministry cannot allow such dangerous spell materials to remain in the hands of a minor. If you still have the runic array Lockhart gave you, I must ask you to turn it over to me along with any notes you may have."

George's smile faded, and he actually looked a bit crestfallen. For a second, he considered lying, but respect for the title of auror won out. "Yes sir. They're up in my room, locked up in my trunk. Do you want my solution as well?"

Proudfoot blinked twice. "Your ... solution?"

"For how to convert an explosive rune into a ward slicer. I kept working on it even after I got home." He coughed delicately. "I, um, get bored easily."

The auror nodded slowly. "Yes, I think I'd better have that as well."

George turned and bounded up the stairs. While he was gone, Proudfoot studied the cozy Burrow while resolutely ignoring the suspicious and hostile glare the overprotective Weasley mother directed towards her son's interrogator. About a minute later, George returned and handed him a stack of carefully arranged papers.

"That's all of it," he said with a hint of sadness.

"Thank you." The auror paused. "And you actually think you've solved the problem Lockhart set for you?"

The boy shrugged. "Well, obviously I can't rightly test it. And I still think it would be kind of unstable and would probably cause a discharge of some kind, so don't try it while standing next to your gran's china cabinet. But yeah, I'm pretty confident."

Proudfoot smiled. "I look forward to what the boys in the research division have to say." He looked back and forth between Molly and George. "Given the nature of this research and its possible criminal applications, I must ask that you not discuss your work on this project with anyone else."

George nodded while Molly said nothing. Finally, his presence no longer needed, Proudfoot showed himself out and headed down the lane to the edge of the wards so that he could apparate. Once he was outside the Burrow's wards, he pulled out George's notes and his runic solution and spent a few minutes studying them. As he did, his naive expression melted away to a more thoughtful demeanor, and for just a second, his blue eyes turned gray.

"Ah, Mr. Weasley. You always were my favorite student." And then, with a soft pop, " _Auror Proudfoot_ " apparated away.

* * *

 __ **10 July 1993**  
5:00 a.m.  
The Kumar Towers Hotel  
Shamballa

Jim Potter's eyes fluttered open as the early light of dawn came in through the window of the hotel room he shared with his best friend. He rolled over and noticed that Ron's bed was empty. Immediately, Jim sat up and saw that the door to the balcony was open. The boy's eyes widened and a cold fear clenched his heart. Quietly, he got out of bed and crept to the balcony door. To his relief, Ron was there but nowhere near the ledge as Jim had feared. Instead, he was standing in the middle of the large balcony in his pajamas and facing the rising sun as he went through the relaxation kata that Padma had taught him the prior week and to Ron just days before. Ron was not yet as proficient with it as Jim, but he was learning fast.

"Well isn't this a sight," Jim said. "Usually, I'm the one dragging you out of bed for early morning workouts. What brought this on?"

"Couldn't sleep," Ron said simply. "Bad dreams. Thought this might help."

"And has it?" Jim asked as he stepped out onto the cool balcony and took his place by Ron's side, easily falling into the rhythm of the Water Aspect kata.

"Yeah, actually. I've been doing this for about five minutes or so, and I already feel less like vomiting from terror."

Jim winced. "That bad?"

"It was the ' _spiders crawling up my throat_ ' dream again. Pretty sure that's as bad as it gets. Healer Baskar says we'll try to work on my arachnophobia while we're here if there's time, but obviously all the Voldemort stuff I went through takes priority."

Jim nodded. "You, uh, haven't talked much about that since we got here. You know you can always talk to me, right? I mean, no matter what happened last year, we'll always be best mates."

Ron said nothing at first, but then after a few seconds, he suddenly paused his kata and then turned to face Jim.

"I've still got bits of Voldemort in my head," he said without preamble. Startled, Jim dropped his own kata and turned towards Ron, his eyes wide.

"Baskar told you that?" he asked. Ron nodded.

"There's not enough there now to do anything, at least as far as Baskar can tell. But ... if Voldemort ever returns completely, there's ... there's a chance he could influence me or affect me somehow. You're my best mate too, Jim. But I want you to promise me..."

"Ron," Jim tried to interrupt.

"No, Jim," Ron said forcefully. "I want you to  _promise_ me that if you think I'm under his influence, you won't hold back just because we're friends. You can't. There's too much at stake."

Jim took a deep breath as he considered his friend's words. "Okay, I promise. But only on one condition.  _You_  have to promise that you will never stop fighting him. That you will do everything you can to not let him control you or influence you."

Ron smiled. "Deal."

Jim relaxed and the two returned to their morning kata. After a few seconds, a calmer Ron spoke again. "Speaking of doing everything I can to get better, I've been thinking. We should bite the broomstick and join Granger's study group this year if she'll still have us. Or better yet, get her to tutor us individually. I think I may need some extra help."

"Oh?" Jim said, surprised once again.

"Yeah," Ron said as he swayed back in forth in a motion that he refused to call serpentine. "Tell me – have you ever heard of something called  _dyslexia_?"

* * *

_**15 July 1993  
The Weasley Burrow** _

"Mum, the excavation is at an especially delicate point right now," Bill Weasley said earnestly to Molly through the green flames of the Weasley Floo. "I can't just pop up and come back home for a few days just for a party."

"Really, Bill? How odd! I flooed your supervisor to see if he could get you a message out in the field. Martin Pepperwinkle. Wonderful fellow. I was a bridesmaid for his daughter, Eudora. Did you know that? Anyway, he said the most dangerous part of your current dig was wrapping up and that he was planning on giving everyone on your team ten days holiday for ... R&R? Is that the right term? In fact, I could have sworn that he'd also said something about how he'd already mentioned that to you. He said that you were excited to have some time off to take your ' _new lady friend_ ' off for a week to some island off the coast of Greece where nobody ever wears clothes. But that can't be right, Bill, because I'm sure if you had a new lady friend you'd have told me about it in one of those letters you never find time to send home."

And with that, Molly Weasley actually  _smiled_ at her eldest son through the Floo connection. Bill closed his eyes and put two fingers up to his forehead as if to push the approaching aneurysm back into place. "Mum, she's not a ... lady friend. We're just friends from work, and we're going on holiday together."

"Well, Bill, you say she's a friend, and she's a ' _she_ ' which means a woman. I certainly  _hope_  she's a lady, though this whole ' _naked island_ ' thing gives me pause." Then, her eyes widened with excitement. "I know! If you can't make it home for Ron's homecoming party, you can bring your lady friend home for  _Christmas_. We can introduce her to everyone, and I'll get out all the scrapbooks of you growing up. I'm sure she'll love the one of you when you were a wee baby rolling around on that bearskin rug! And you won't even have any need to feel embarrassed that you were naked in that picture since she'll have already seen everything!"

Bill sighed in defeat. "When's the party?"

"Ron comes home on the 30th and we'll have a surprise party ready for him. Then, we'll all go to the Potters as a family for Jim's birthday party the next day. On the 2nd, you can either portkey back to Cairo or straight to whichever naked island you desire."

Bill's eyes goggled a bit. "You're remarkably blase about ... naked islands."

Molly shrugged. "You're a grown man, and I made sure you know contraceptive Charms. I've ... had an object lesson recently on the dangers of being an overbearing busybody of a mother." Then, she looked away while blinking rapidly.

"Mum," Bill said gently. "What happened to Ron was in no way your fault."

She paused before responding. "Bill, you can't imagine... When he woke up in the Infirmary after ... William, he  _screamed_  when he saw us! Like he just knew we all hated him and he couldn't bear the sight of us judging him. It may have been the fault of Gilderoy Lockhart and You-Know-Who, but I played my part. And so did your father. And so did all of us. That's why your father and I want all of us to be here for Ron. So he  _knows_  that we're all family and we all love one another. And if that requires me to hector my eldest into coming home for just a few days so that the boy who idolizes him can remember what he looks like..."

Bill laughed and raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'll come. Mind you, international port-keys are a bit pricey."

"Oh, did I forget to mention? Your father won 700 galleons in the Daily Prophet Prize Draw. We considered just using that money to visit  _you_  in Cairo, but since Ron's off to India, we thought it unfair to go without him. So we're using that money to buy new wands for all the children who are still using starter wands that they got out of the Prewett vaults. Maybe a pet for each of them, too." She paused and frowned. "Oh, and better brooms for everyone... including Ginny."

"Uh-huh. I still can't believe you're letting her try out for Quidditch."

"Like I said. I'm going to try hard to stop being one of  _those_  parents. I spent too much time fretting over your decisions and Charlie's. With everything that's happened, I don't have it in my to worry myself to death over my children doing risky things, particularly when I know perfectly well that they're all going to go behind my back and do what they want anyway." Then, she sniffed almost diffidently. "Not that I won't be having  _words_  with Charlie about teaching Ginny to fly unsupervised in the middle of the night without our permission, mind you."

Bill laughed again.

* * *

_**Meanwhile, outside...** _

Percy was in the shed helping his father tinker with the Anglia while Ginny and the Twins degnomed the garden. At first, the Twins were surprised – amazed, actually – when Molly put Ginny on gnome detail with them. It was the first time she'd ever been given the chore. But their mother explained that Ginny had proven herself able to get into as much mischief as any of her brothers, so it was foolish to take it easy on her just because she was a girl. Ginny's initial pride in her mother's new sentiment lasted right up until the first time a gnome bit her on the finger.

Percy, who knew nothing about engines, was in charge of handing Arthur various tools out of the man's aggressively Muggle toolbox when requested. Although not a devotee of Muggle culture like his father, the boy was a quick learner and had reached the point where he could identify most of the tools in the box by name and function. Nevertheless, he was of his game today, as Arthur noted when Percy handed him a sledge hammer instead of the adjustable spanner he'd requested.

"Percy, you won't make the Hogwarts letter get here any faster by worrying yourself to death over it. To be honest, I asked you to help me with this to get your mind  _off_  of it."

"Well, you know me," the teenager said ruefully. "Perfect Prefect Percy. Everything I've done has led me to one moment where the whole rest of my life will be decided by one little envelope with a tiny silver medallion in it."

"Son, I promise you. The whole rest of your life will  _not_  be decided on the basis of whether you're made Head Boy. I firmly believe that you can achieve whatever you want out of life whether you get that honor or not. And your mother and I will be just as proud of you either way."

Percy started to answer but was then distracted what he now saw through the window of the shed: the quartet of Hogwarts owls he'd been expecting for days now approaching from the north. He glanced out the open shed door and saw that the Twins and Ginny were still engrossed with the gnomes. Cautiously, he moved around to the side of the house to intercept the owl meant for him without his siblings seeing. Arthur casually followed behind. It was silly, Percy knew, but whether he got the Head Boy position or not, the boy wanted to have a moment by himself to absorb the news since he was sure the Twins would tease him relentlessly either way.

The owl landed on a nearby fence post, and held out its talon with the Hogwarts letter attached. Nervously, Percy removed the letter, and the owl flew away. He tore the envelope open and turned it upside down to let the contents fall into his hand.

It was a standard Gryffindor prefect's badge, identical to the one he'd worn for the last two years.

Percy closed his eyes and exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Then, he felt his father reach out and put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, Percy, I'm so sorry."

The boy opened his eyes to look at his father, and to Arthur's surprise, he actually smiled, if halfheartedly.

"It's okay, Dad. Really, it's ... okay. To be honest, I kind of expected this." He pulled out the letter that came with the badge and was unsurprised to learn that Bobby Lattimer of Hufflepuff would be the new Head Boy instead of him. The other boy had, after all, won his House a hundred points by calmly following instructions to protect the school instead of tearing off with an angry mob, thereby putting even more students in danger.

"Bobby's a fine fellow and a credit to the school. He'll do a good job. And without the added hassle of being Head Boy, maybe I'll have an easier time with my NEWTs."

"Percy, I'm sure it wasn't just a snap judgment Albus made based on how you responded to that Chamber of Secrets business."

Percy laughed. "Dad! Of course it was! And I can't really blame him. When push came to shove, I knew what I was supposed to do, but I let my emotions get the best of me, and I made the wrong call."

"You were worried about your brother, son. There's no shame in that."

"I know, but that doesn't change the fact that  _I made the wrong call_ ," Percy said calmly but firmly and surprisingly without much bitterness. "I don't just mean by failing to follow instructions and Hogwarts procedures. I mean I  _objectively_  made the wrong decision because if I'd  _succeeded_  in capturing and detaining Jim Potter, he wouldn't have made it to the Chamber of Secrets  _in time to save Ron_. Ron would have died, You-Know-Who would have returned, he'd have probably massacred half the school,  _and it would have been all my fault!_ "

With that, Percy's sudden energy faded and he leaned his back against the wall of the Burrow as if to draw strength from his family home. "And do you want to know the craziest bit, Dad? If I ever find myself in a similar situation again ... I'll probably do the same thing. Which is  _why_  I have no business being the Head Boy if I can't put family loyalty aside when I've accepted a higher duty."

"Percy," Arthur said gently. "You love your family. There's no shame in that."

"We all love the family, Dad. But ... I think I've spent too much time in love with  _The Family_." He emphasized the last two words with deliberate pomposity. "I was in love with the idea of the Noble House of Weasley instead of the actual family members who belong to it. Since I was a kid, I've dreamed about restoring the family name. Getting us back in the Wizengamot. That sort of thing. And since I first became a prefect, I think I've begun to resent the family members who seemed like ... obstacles to that goal. Bill and Charlie for running off to follow their bliss when they maybe could have done more to build up the family's fortunes here in Britain. George and Fred for ... well, being George and Fred. And ..." He paused and looked up shamefacedly at Arthur, who simply smiled indulgently at him.

"And your duffer of a father with his silly Muggle obsessions?"

Percy laughed and shook his head. "You are the best dad any wizard or witch could hope for. And I'm a bloody fool for not realizing it sooner." He looked back down at the Prefect's badge. "I'm ... glad I'm not Head Boy. Disappointed, of course, but also glad. I ... I think I've been headed down the wrong path for a while now. And being Head Boy would have only carried me farther along it."

Arthur pulled his son who was becoming a man into a tight hug that Percy returned happily ... right up until they were both startled by the loud shrieks from around the corner. They raced around to see what the commotion was but then stopped short and gawked in astonishment.

For in the garden, they could see the Twins, both of them staring in mute horror and amazement (and in Fred's case,  _maybe_  a touch of betrayed anger) at the crimson and gold Prefect's badge that George held delicately between two fingers as if it had come dipped in a deadly poison.

* * *

__**24 June 1993  
The Naga Cultural Center and Ski Resort  
(20 miles north of Shamballa)**

Lily Potter looked up in wonder at the thirty-foot behemoth than loomed over her. The creature had the body of an enormous snake, most of which was coiled to support its massive weight. Its torso made up less than a fourth of its total length but was marked by  _six_ lithe and sinewy arms. Two hands were joined in prayer or supplication of some kind while the other four were outstretched into what Lily assumed were occult mudras. But the most striking feature was the monster's head. Noseless, hairless, and clearly serpentine, it reminded Lily disturbingly of Voldemort's face from the last time she saw him at Godric's Hollow. The Dark Lord had, for some mad reason, used dark magic to transform himself into a hideous snake-man, though whether it was to secure the loyalty of his many Slytherin supporters, to terrify his enemies, or for some other occult purpose, no one knew. Lily shuddered once more at the sight, and the only reason the huge creature wasn't even more terrifying was that it was simply a statue. Specifically, it was a giant stone statue representing a mythical creature known as a  _naga_.

Remus Lupin, who was acting as her tour guide at the moment, noticed her reaction. "It reminds you of  _him_ , doesn't it? I had the same reaction when I first came here for a visit."

Over the last few weeks, their mutual proximity to Jim had essentially forced Lily and Remus to at least be civil to one another, and while Remus still held a grudge on Harry's behalf, speaking with Lily had reminded the man of the friendship they had once shared. In time, civility blossomed into cordiality. It helped when Lily admitted to him that if Harry had shown magic at any point during his childhood, her plan had been to transfer custody to Remus who would raise him abroad until he was old enough to attend Beauxbatons under a false name. Now that he better understood Lily's somewhat obsessive desire to separate Harry from the public's obsession with the Boy-Who-Lived (and the attendant risk of Death Eaters targeting Harry), Remus thought her decision to send the boy to the Dursleys when he seemed to be a squib made a bit more sense, although he was still appalled that neither Lily nor James had ever checked up on him and that the Dursleys were even more awful as he'd expected.

On this day, as Jim and Ron started their last week at Shamballa before returning to Britain, Remus and Baskar had both decided to give the pair a day off from study to explore one of the region's more unusual cultural experiences. In part, it was because Healer Baskar was attending a Healer's Conference in Jakarta, but he agreed with Remus that the boys had worked hard and were entitled to down time. A weekend spent skiing would be perfect, to say nothing of the wonders of the Naga Caves. A hundred years earlier, wizards from Shamballa discovered the large cave network that had been hidden by the Himalayan ice since time immemorial. Within, they discovered ancient hieroglyphics that depicted a forgotten race of snake men that came to be known as the naga (after the legendary talking snakes of Indian Muggle mythology). Although he had no proof of it, Baskar was convinced that the site had some connection to the origins of Parseltongue, and he was quite curious to learn what two apparently natural Parselmouths thought of it.

The caves themselves were a minor curiosity until the 1930's, when the 9th Kumar Pasha (the grandfather of Parvati's fiancé) became enamored of Muggle skiing. Finding the slopes near caves to be ideal for that purpose, he had a private ski lodge built nearby which his son, who was a wizarding hotelier among other ventures, later expanded into a posh resort hotel for wizards who enjoyed skiing and other winter sports. By associating his resort with the nearby Naga Caves, the current head of the Kumar family was able to obtain certain concessions from the Shamballa city government, one of which was that the largest piece of naga statuary found within the caves would be relocated to the lobby of his opulent resort.

"Were there actual naga at one point?" Lily asked. "I don't remember covering them in Care of Magical Creatures."

"We didn't. And no one truly knows if they were real or not. The word itself is simply Sanskrit for ' _snake_.' The Naga Caves were rediscovered in 1891 – they had a big fete two years ago for the Centennial – but they're old enough to predate the founding of Shamballa itself. Whether they were originally created by a now-extinct species of human-animal hybrid, that is, the snake equivalent of centaurs and veela, or by some forgotten tribe of ancient humans who simply venerated snakes is unknown. Probably the later, since a serpentine race would most likely be cold-blooded and unlikely to make its home in the Himalayas. Either way, the ones who decorated the caves probably weren't wizarding-folk. There are no signs that the builders of the caves used any magic we know of in their construction." He paused and looked back up at massive bronze statue. "Which only makes it more astonishing that they could move something that massive halfway up one of the world's tallest mountains."

"Do you agree with Healer Baskar that there's a connection between the naga and Parseltongue?"

Remus shrugged. "Possibly. But the ones who built the caves left hieroglyphics that have not yet been fully translated, and anyway, that tells us nothing about their spoken language. Unless definitive proof is found somehow, there's no real way of knowing."

Lily nodded before looking back up at the colossus standing before her. She shuddered again.

* * *

Meanwhile, a few miles away from the hotel, Ron walked carefully down the dim and somewhat spooky pathways of the Naga Caves, pausing every now and then to study the strange serpentine markings etched onto the cave walls that were illuminated by glowing spheres every few feet. With him were Jim, Padma, Pavarti, and Sanjeev Kumar, Pavarti's fiancé who had arranged the excursion. The two boys had spent the morning learning to ski, which Ron had found surprisingly enjoyable, but now they were taking a break for a tour of the famous cave system while letting their lunch digest. While the tour was rather interesting to the two young Parselmouths, Ron and Jim's initial impression of Sanjeev as being "the Indian Draco Malfoy" was confirmed. In particular, the older boy apparently viewed the cave and everything in it as essentially his family's property rather than ancient artifacts to be admired for their inherent cultural value. Ron eventually started to entertain himself by counting the number of times Sanjeev said "my father" in the course of their tour, but he lost count somewhere around twenty. They were also less than impressed with the exceptionally gaudy ruby ring which he presented to Parvati but which apparently had been sized incorrectly and kept sliding off the girl's finger. Padma visibly loathed the boy, and while he appeared not to notice, Pavarti was increasingly annoyed by her sister's attitude.

By now, the group had entered a large open chamber which Sanjeev identified as "the Grand Balcony," a level outcropping of stone that stuck out over a deep chasm some fifty feet across and twice as deep. On the far side, illuminated by glow spheres suspended from the ceiling, was a sheer granite cliff face onto which had been carved a magnificent and enormous bas relief of the same six-armed naga whose statue now stood in the lobby of the ski lodge. Surrounding the great naga were hundreds of other snakes carved into the wall in an ornate interlocking design. The edge of the balcony had been roped off to prevent anyone from falling over the edge, and there were other signs of recent construction work, including the caution tape and a "Do Not Enter" sign which Sanjeev had simply pushed aside before leading the group into the chamber.

"One of my father's companies is doing some renovations to the Caves," Sanjeev explained loftily. "For safety purposes. There was some minor structural damage caused when the great naga statue was relocated from this chamber to the lodge."

Padma muttered something under her breath about the propriety of relocating an artifact that had stood unmolested for millennia to serve as a decoration for a hotel lobby, and Ron and Jim both fought down smirks. Pavarti glared at her twin, while Sanjeev was distracted by one of his father's employees who had entered the chamber to speak with him. From what Ron could hear, the conversation consisted of the worker insisting that the chamber was off-limits for safety reasons followed by variations on " _Do you know who my father is?_ " from Sanjeev. Finally, Sanjeev called out to Parvati, saying that he needed to speak with the site manager but would return in a few minutes. As soon as Sanjeev and the worker left the chamber, Parvati whirled on Padma in anger.

"What is  _wrong_  with you?! You've been horrible to Sanjeev all day!"

"Oh I don't know, sister. Perhaps I'm just irritated to see you hanging all over that spoiled child like some bauble he purchased at a village fair!"

"How dare you speak about the Pashazada like that!"

"The Pasha-what?" Ron interrupted suddenly.

"Pashazada," Parvati said. "It means ' _the Pasha's son_.'"

Ron nodded. "Okay. Can you also explain what a Pasha is? 'Cause I've been wondering that since we got to India."

"Me too, actually," said Jim, "but I've been too embarrassed to ask."

"That's okay, Ron," Padma said drily. "It's just a meaningless courtesy title."

Parvati gasped. "PADMA!"

Her sister shrugged. "It is! ' _Pasha_ ' was an honorific title given to generals and governors in the Ottoman Empire, as well as to private individuals who had done something to please the Sultan. Over  _four hundred years ago_ , back before the Statute of Secrecy, one of Sanjeev's ancestors performed some service for the Sultan of that era. No one even remembers what it was! But he was awarded the title of Pasha which has been handed down from father to son ever since. Even after the Statute of Secrecy meant that the Kumar Pasha couldn't use that title in front of Muggles. Even after the Ottoman Empire  _ceased to exist some seventy years ago_! But they still call themselves Pasha and Pashazada because they think it sounds more impressive than ' _elitist prats_.' And everyone just goes along with it because they're  _so bloody rich!_ "

Ron and Jim glanced at one another nervously as months, perhaps years, of suppressed anger between the Patil sisters finally erupted in front of them. Quietly, they took a few steps back and contemplated whether to wait outside the chamber rather than continue to witness the scene.

"SO THAT'S IT!" Parvati shrieked. "This isn't about cultural respect or courtesy titles! I'm engaged to a billionaire's son and you're JEALOUS!" As she spat out the accusation, Parvati gestured wildly towards her sister, causing her expensive but oversized ring to fly off her finger and skitter across the cavern floor. She gasped in horror as it rolled to a halt right at the edge of the chasm before falling onto its side. Then, she gave her sister another furious look before storming over past the rope barrier to where the ring had landed.

"I swear, Padma, if that had gone over the edge, I'd have sent you right after it," she spat as she bent over to pick up the gaudy jewelry.

Padma snorted. "I'd like to see you try!"

For their part, Ron and Jim were still paralyzed with discomfort and wondering if they were about to have to break up a fight between the two girls. It would have been better for all concerned if that had been the case, for at that moment, Parvati jerked back up and whirled around to shout something back to Padma when her foot slid on some loose dirt and gravel at the landing's edge. The girl lost her balance and fell, barely grasping the edge of the balcony while letting out a shriek.

"PARVATI!" Padma screamed, while Ron looked on in horror.

" _Sssshit!_ " Jim, in his surprise, actually hissed out the expletive in Parseltongue, as he desperately fumbled for his wand beneath multiple layers of heavy winter clothing. He'd thought about getting a wand holster of his own but resisted the idea as being "too Harry." At this moment, he cursed himself for that sentiment as Parvati lost her grip and fell before he could get his wand out to catch her. Padma screamed again, and all three children rushed to the edge of the balcony with Ron and Jim holding Padma back so she didn't fall over after her sister. The bottom of the chasm was shrouded in darkness. Jim finally got his wand out and cast a Lumos Maxima. Parvati's body looked terribly broken, but to the trio's amazement, there seemed to be signs of life.

"PARVATI!" Padma called out again, tears streaming down her face. Jim looked around for some way to get down to the injured girl. Seeing none, he looked up and spotted the secure metal posts from which the light globes were suspended.

" _ **CARPE RETRACTUM!**_ **"** With a flash, a sturdy rope shot out of the tip of Jim's wand and wrapped itself securely around one of the posts. Then, to Ron's shock, the Boy-Who-Lived stepped off the balcony himself and swung out to the middle of the gap before willing the rope to slowly extend itself and lower him down to the ground below. Realizing what his friend had done, Ron rose and prepared to cast the same spell, when Padma grabbed his arm.

"Take me with you!" she said urgently.

"I, ah, don't know if ..." Ron sputtered.

" _Please!_  She's my  _sister!_ "

Ron scrunched his eyes up for a second and then let out a loud sigh. "Grab round my neck. I need both hands to hold onto the wand."

The girl did as instructed while Ron focused his attention on another of the light posts. " _Pleasedon'tbreakpleasedon'tbreakpleasedon'tbreak..."_ he thought urgently before casting Carpe Retractum and then swinging off into the chasm with Padma Patil hanging on for dear life. Slowly, the two of them lowered down to the cave floor where Jim was already performing the diagnostic spell on Parvati.

"She's alive," he said. "But she's badly hurt, and I don't know if we know any spells that will save her." He looked back down at the unconscious girl and took a deep breath.

" _ **EPISSSSKEY!**_ " he hissed, hoping that the only Parselmagic healing spell he knew might do some good. Parvati's body twitched slightly and some of her smaller wounds closed, but she did not regain consciousness.

Ron thought for a moment and bit his lower lip in nervousness. "Let me try something.  _ **SAMSARA.**_ " His wand lit up with a soft blue light, and he touched the top of it to Parvati's forehead. Her breathing became stronger and less labored.

"What spell is that?" Jim asked in surprise.

Ron kept his eyes closed in concentration. "Life Support Charm. It'll keep her stable until you get help. But  _hurry_. I've never actually done this on a person before and I don't know how long I can hold it."

Jim nodded before jumping back up. He fired off another retracting cable to the overhead lights, one that pulled him all the way up to the ceiling. Then, grabbing hold of the light post with one hand, he dispelled that rope before firing another one to a light over the balcony that he used to swing over.

"Hang on, Ron! I'll be back as soon as I can!" he yelled down as he ran off in search of medical assistance.

Down below, Padma was holding onto her sister's hand while weeping uncontrollably. "Please, Parvati. Be okay. I'm sorry for what I said. For everything."

Ron focused as best he could on maintaining the life force connection forged by the Samsara Charm. But it was a difficult Charm to maintain and the spell was not one with which he'd had much (or really any) experience. After nearly a minute, his concentration finally broke, and Parvati's breathing once more grew labored and ragged. He cast the spell a second time, but it was less effective and only lasted for about thirty seconds before breaking. His third try lasted only for ten seconds, and his head began to swim from the strain.

"I'm sorry..." he said in a thick voice. Padma seemed to ignore him as she wept over her dying sister. Ron's own eyes teared up as well, not only at the impending death of a fellow Gryffindor but also at the symbolism of the scene in front of him. Padma, influenced by jealousy, had lashed out at her sister, and disaster had followed. He could relate. Ron looked down at the unconscious girl and imagined George or Fred or even Ginny lying in her place. Then, he closed his eyes and cast his memory back to the previous week.

_It was a Tuesday. Jim was off on one of his private lessons with Brother Chandra, so Ron spent the afternoon one-on-one with Healer Baskar, working on various healing spells that could be augmented with Parselmagic. As Ron reviewed the list, he suddenly noticed an absence._

" _I don't see Samsara on here. Does Parseltongue not work with it?"_

" _Very perceptive, Mr. Weasley. The Life Support Charm is indeed susceptible to Parselmagic. But think about what that would mean if you used it in such a fashion. Samsara functions by linking the life forces of the caster and an injured person, allowing life energy to flow directly from one to another. So if we boost the spell's normal effects with Parselmagic...?"_

_Ron thought for a moment. "You could transfer more life energy than you intended! How dangerous would that be to the caster?"_

" _Very. I've only attempted the Parselmagic version of Samsara once to save someone at the very brink of death, but even with years of experience, I was barely able to keep my very life from draining away in the spell."_

Ron thought about Baskar's warning, but in the end, it didn't matter. A young girl, a friend, was dying in front of him, and he (maybe) had the power to save her. He knew what was easy and what was right. And he knew what he had to do. Ron took a deep breath, focused his attention on the tip of his wand, and hissed. " _ **SSSSSAMSSSSARA.**_ " Instead of a soft blue glow from his wand tip, he was rewarded with a brilliant while light. Immediately, he touched his wand to Parvati whose entire body went rigid and was enveloped in a halo so bright that Padma had to look away.

Then, Padma's concern for her sister was overcome by a sudden wave of terror as the hundreds of snakes carved into the great wall above her, as well as the great naga they surrounded, all  _hissed_  in unison in response to the boy's actions. Outside the chamber, Jim had only just passed the news of Parvati's injury to Sanjeev when the various snake symbols and carvings on the nearby cave walls also hissed as one, their message filling the boy with dread. After practically yelling at Sanjeev and the workers to summon a healer, he raced back towards the chamber where he had left his best friend behind. Meanwhile, miles away, Lily, Remus, and the other guests at the ski lodge were equally as startled and amazed when a deep and terrible hissing sound bellowed forth from the mammoth naga statue in the hotel's lobby.

Down in the chasm, the light from Ron's wand grew brighter and brighter until Parvati's whole body shook violently as the worst of her wounds and broken bones healed instantly. Her eyes shot open and she sucked in air with a loud gasp. Padma cried out and embraced her twin in a fierce hug. Parvati hissed in pain – Ron's s spell had only brought her back from the brink of death and had not healed her completely, but she was just as relieved to be alive as her sister was to witness it. Only after Parvati reassured Padma that she was okay did the two girls glance over at Ron and become shocked at his appearance. The boy was as white as a sheet, more pale than any person they'd ever seen. His head was bobbing, and his wand trembled violently in his hand.

"...worked?" he asked in a shaky whisper. "S'good." Then, his eyes rolled back up into his head and he fell over onto the floor, unconscious or worse.

"Ron!" Jim cried out to his friend from the balcony up above. Padma looked up at him and did a double-take. She'd never seen the Boy-Who-Lived so frightened. She could not possibly have known why, for other than Ron, Jim Potter was the only person who had heard the terrible hissing that rose up in response to Ron's spell and understood what the snakes of the Naga Caves had said.

" _Your sacrifice has been accepted._ "

* * *

_**Elsewhere...** _

After an unknown time, Ron's eyes suddenly opened and he sat up and looked around. He saw nothing but darkness, but he could feel his wand still in his hand, so he held it aloft and cried out " _ **LUMOSSSSS.**_ " The boy was actually surprised that the spell came out as Parselmagic, for he had not intended to hiss. He was even more surprised when, instead of a soft light from the tip of his wand, there was a bright light coming from above that completely illuminated the area in which he found himself. He looked around again and was amazed (and somewhat alarmed) to realize he had been transported somewhere else. Possibly to some other part of the Naga Caves, but for some reason he doubted it.

The chamber seem impossibly large. Roughly twenty feet in every direction stood a massive stone column, five feet in diameter and adorned with a snake made of some precious metal that wrapped around each column before disappearing into a thick mist far above the floor. The mist was luminescent and was the source of the light that manifested in response to his Parselmagic Lumos. Not all of the mist though; the glowing part was limited to a rough circle centered on Ron. The columns themselves seemed endless and formed a regular grid, one every twenty feet at right angles, as far as the eye could see. "As far as the eye could see" actually meant about a hundred feet in every direction, as the glow from the mist did not penetrate the darkness beyond that.

Ron stood up and yelled. "Hello?! Is anybody out there?!" There was no response, so the boy picked a direction and started walking. He soon noticed that the aura of light followed him. After an indeterminate time (truly indeterminate – the boy tried to cast Tempus, but the spell refused to function, even when he hissed it in Parseltongue), Ron suddenly developed the strong feeling that he was being watched, or at least observed somehow. Soon after, however, that nagging sensation was washed away by a more important concern, for Ron suddenly heard a voice. It was Jim Potter calling for help from somewhere in the distance!

Ron took off in a run, but soon he skidded to a halt, transfixed by what lay ahead: still more impossible tall columns, but these were marked by a familiar yet terrifying sight. Webs. Lots and lots of webs. More than the boy had ever seen in his life. The Twins had told him scary stories before he started Hogwarts about the Forbidden Forest and the acromantula colony within it. Even those tales, as embellished as they must have been, were not as disturbing as the forest of spider webs that lay before him. And somewhere within, Ron could still hear Jim weakly calling for his aid. Ron swallowed fearfully and then raised his wand.

" _ **LACERO!**_ " A knife-blade of magical force sliced cleanly through the nearest web. After a few more cutting curses, a path began to clear through the webbing. But Ron's efforts also alerted the inhabitants to his presence, for soon, huge spiders – no, acromantulas! – came down from whatever was above and beyond the mists, crawling down the columns and the webs that connected them. Instinctively, Ron took a step back, but another frightened cry from Jim stiffened his resolve, and he raised his wand again.

" _ **LACERO! ARANA EXUMAI! LACERO! STUPIFY!**_ " The boy threw spells faster than he ever had before, but more and more acromantulas came down to replace their fallen brethren. And each new wave included larger spiders than the one before. Now shaking in fear, Ron nearly faltered, but another cry from his friend somewhere beyond the webbing stiffened his resolve. He knew he was outnumbered, but then he thought of something to even the odds.

" _ **SSSSERPENTSSSSORTIA!**_ " The boy nearly staggered under the power of the Parselmagic spell as it erupted from his wand. There was a flash of light, and then suddenly nearly a dozen vipers materialized and practically flew through the air towards the acromantulas. " _Attack the sssspiders! Sssstrike at them all!_ " His viper servants obeyed without question, tearing at the deadly spiders and giving Ron some breathing room. Emboldened, he returned to attacking the web itself. He had avoided using fire spells for fear that the flames might spread and endanger Jim and himself, but the sheer number of spiders attacking led him to abandon that restraint. As more and more of the foul creatures fell to his magic, he became less afraid of them and more ...  _incensed_  by their attacks.

" _ **INCENDIO!"**_ The webbing caught fire easily but luckily did not start an inferno. The spiders climbing down through the webs instead fell down to the waiting fangs of the vipers, and when their numbers started to fall, Ron conjured more snakes to bolster them and added his own attacks to those of his serpent-fighters. " _ **LACERO! DEPULSO! LACERO! FLIPPENDO TRIO!**_ "

Finally, he had fought his way to the center of the webbing and found Jim on the floor wrapped up tightly in webbing.

"Jim! Jim! Can you hear me?!" The boy seemed to still be alive but paralyzed and in pain. He had a number of bite marks on his skin. Suddenly, Ron  _sensed_  rather than heard the arrival of something behind him. Something  _big._  The boy jumped up and whirled around just in time to see the largest spider he'd ever seen, ever  _imagined_ , lower itself to the ground in an eerie unnatural silence. Hagrid had told Ron and Jim all about his friend Aragog, the spider-king of the acromantula colony in the Forbidden Forest. This looked even bigger. Ron wasn't sure if the monster could even fit inside the Gryffindor common room even if it were some how possible to get it through the doors. And then, the foul thing  _spoke_...

" _Run, boy. You are no match for me. And you will not deprive me and my children of their meal. Run now, and I will let you live._ "

Ron's eyes narrowed as he realized that Jim was the meal the monster was talking about. The old wave of fear he'd felt since he was a child every time he saw a spider rose up once more. The wave that had turned into a tsunami after Tom Riddle's spider-themed tortures. But this time something was different. This time he was all that stood between the Boy-Who-Lived and certain death. For the first time, Ron felt that wave of fear crash against something unyielding and resolute ... and for once, the wave of fear fell short.

"You want Jim?" Ron asked in a fury. "I'll see you in HELL first!" And then he raised his wand aloft. " _ **INCCCCCENDIO**_ " he hissed in a fury of Parselmagic, and white-hot flames practically exploded from his wand to engulf the acromantula and its spawn. The boy spun around where he stood, ensuring that the waves of fire washed over the spiders in every direction. Finally, Ron released his spell. The flames dissipated, and Ron fell to his knees, nearly exhausted. But he knew there was no time to rest. Who knew how many more spiders were still around! Shaking off his exhaustion, the boy pulled himself up to his feet and scanned the room with his wand.

There were no more spiders. Indeed, there were no signs that there had ever been spiders or webs or even vipers summoned through Ron's magic. And there was no sign of Jim Potter either. Then, Ron jerked around in surprise with his wand still ready for battle. For somewhere nearby, Ron could hear the sound of someone clapping, along with the oddly familiar sound of some large creature  _slithering_ towards him.

"Well done, Child of Man," came a deep sibilant voice from deeper within the maze.

"Who's there?!" Ron yelled out. "What have you done with Jim?! And what is this place?!"

"Your friend was never here, Child of Man." The voice drew nearer, and finally, Ron saw its source shimmer into existence out of thin air not thirty feet from where he stood. The form was certainly familiar, as Ron had seen its image all over the caves today. The creature – no, the  _being_  – was at least thirty feet long from the top of his bald head to the tip of his serpent's tail. Three-quarters of his body was given over to the form of a massive snake, while the rest was a scaly torso with six arms and a head that resembled a man's save for the brilliant green scales and other serpentine features.

"Those you fought, like the one you fought to protect, were never truly here but were merely constructs drawn from your mind to test you. As for your other question. I am Sardeth, Last of the Naga. I bid you welcome, Ronald Weasley. This is the last citadel of my race. This is my home... and my prison."

Ron swallowed and tightened his grip on his wand. The snake-man was quite near and now towered at least ten feet over him. "Prison? And, um, what exactly are you in prison  _for_?"

Sardeth smiled in a way that Ron thought showed too many teeth. "Hubris, Child of Man. I am the last of the naga ... because I  _annihilated_ all the others.

* * *

_**The Temple of Healing  
Shamballa** _

Jim stood at the foot of Ron's bed staring down morosely at his friend, with Lily and Remus behind him. It had been less than an hour since healers had transported Ron and the others back to Shamballa and the Temple of Healing. Miraculously, Parvati was almost completely recovered from what should have been a mortal injury, but Ron was still comatose and deathly pale. The healers muttered about his low body temperature and heart rate and his apparent lack of any brain activity. Word had been sent to Gupta Baskar who would be arriving from Jakarta by portkey at any time, but there seemed to be genuine concern as to whether the boy would last that long.

"It's all my fault," Jim whispered.

Lily looked at him sharply. "Jim, that's utter nonsense. You did nothing to cause Parvati to fall and nothing to cause Ron to use a spell beyond his capability to save her."

"Mum, Ron wouldn't even be here if I hadn't pressured him into coming. He'd be safe at home at the Burrow with his family. Instead, he's ..." Jim's voice broke and he wiped a few tears from his eyes. "Have anyone even contacted the Weasleys yet?"

"No," said Remus. "Healer Baskar will be here soon to give his diagnosis. Then, if Ron's condition seems unlikely to change, we'll contact his family."

Jim shook his head. "They'll hate me forever for this. And they'll be right to."

"Enough, Jim," Remus interrupted. "Focus on your training. The Third Step Exercise."

"You want me to leave and go practice my martial arts?" Jim said incredulously.

"No," Remus said as he placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are in the training room going through your kata. You've reached the point where sense memory can be as effective as actually performing the moves. Everything you've been working on with Wu Xi Do for the last few weeks has been for the purpose of strengthening your emotional control, has it not?"

Jim made a face, but then, he closed his eyes and imagined himself back in the training room. After a few seconds, he could feel himself mentally going through the relaxation katas, and the strain and unhappiness faded somewhat from his face. Then, his eyes jerked open as the doors to the infirmary burst open. Healer Baskar had returned. After barely acknowledging the others, he sat down beside Ron on his bed and pried his eyes open so that he could properly scan the boy with Legilimency. After a long moment, he let go of Ron's head and slowly stood.

"Remarkable," he said in a soft voice. Then, he turned to Jim and the others with a confused expression. "This may seem a foolish question, my friends, but is there any possibility that Mr. Weasley was attacked by a Dementor down in the cave?"

Jim, Remus, and Lily looked back and forth in surprise at the odd question. For his part, Jim didn't really even know what a Dementor was other than a creature that served as guard at Azkaban and occasionally as the Ministry's executioners.

"As far as we've been able to tell, Ron collapsed after using the Samsara Charm in conjunction with Parseltongue," Remus said. "Why would you think a Dementor was involved?"

Baskar looked back and forth between Ron and the others with a pensive expression. "Because I can say with authority that Mr. Weasley's mind and body are both perfectly fine... but at the moment, it appears as though his soul has been removed from his body!"

* * *

_**Elsewhere ...** _

At Sardeth's confession, Ron tensed and pointed his wand up at the towering naga. Sardeth merely smiled.

"Be at peace, Child of Man. I mean you no harm."

"I kinda doubt that since you just confessed to killing off your own people  _and_  you sent an army of illusory killer spiders after me."

The naga laughed with a soft  _ki-ki-ki._  "It was not I who summoned the spiders. It was the magic of this place. Before any visitor may speak with me and seek my knowledge, they must first make a sacrifice and then pass a test. The nature of the test varies from visitor to visitor, but in your case, it required you to overcome your greatest fear in defense of another. The only spiders in my domain are the ones you brought with you concealed deep in the recesses of your own mind. I commend you for the bravery you showed in defeating them, though I must warn you against pushing yourself to such extremes when you return from whence you came. We are much closer to the source of Magic than you have ever been, and your spells are more potent here than they would be within the World of Man."

Ron considered that. "You said something about a sacrifice. I don't recall sacrificing anything to come here."

Sardeth laughed again in his strange sibilant way. "Yes. I must confess that I found the whole thing quite amusing. There have been many who have quested their way towards here only to be stymied by an inability to find the proper occult sacrifice that would open the spiritual door to this place. And now, a child has done so completely by accident simply through his willingness to sacrifice his own life in order to save another by means of a spell cast in the language of my people."

The boy did a double-take. It was only then that he realized he and Sardeth had been speaking Parseltongue this whole time. "The language of... You mean Parseltongue? That's actually the language of the naga?"

Sardeth nodded almost proudly. "The word  _naga_  is a human word for my kind even though no human has ever encountered one of us in the flesh. Our own name for our species was  _Paar'zheal_  which simply meant ' _the people_.' The first human to find his way here returned with the gift of our language which he called Parseltongue. And so that word passed into the vocabulary of your race." As Sardeth spoke, he slithered casually back and forth while gesturing with his many arms in a manner that strangely reminded Ron of how some of his professors gestured when lecturing. "The word ' _naga_ ' was one imposed by human wizards upon us when they sought to understand our mysteries through the lens of human mythology. It is the way of this realm to be shaped by belief and consensus, and so I accept  _naga_  as yet another name for my kind."

By this point, Ron had begun to relax. "The first human named your language Parseltongue? By any chance was that a bloke named Salazar Slytherin?"

"No, it was an ancient Egyptian wizard who your history books call Imhotep. But I have been visited by the one you speak of. As a young man, Salazar Slytherin taught himself the language of the Paar'zheal but with incredible difficulty as he had only the written texts of others to learn from. He feared that Parseltongue might become completely lost over time without a fresh supply of speakers, and so he asked for it to become a birthright to be passed down to his heirs and preserved forever. I granted his wish. Regrettably, I later realized that I had shortchanged the man. I knew little of human-kind then. I did yet not comprehend the concept of 'gender' since my own people reproduced asexually and I had never met a female human at that point. As a result, the magic I used to grant Slytherin's wish caused Parseltongue to pass down only among his male descendants." Sardeth shrugged, which Ron thought was an odd motion from someone with six arms. "These things happen when one steps beyond Reality in pursuit of one's desires. Precision is important when dealing with the Wild."

Ron didn't know how to respond to that so he changed subjects. "So people come here to get magical blessings from you and then go back. Does that mean I'm not trapped here or anything?"

"Of course not, child," the naga said almost genially. "You are free to leave whenever you wish, though the magic of my prison compels me to grant you some boon simply for coming here."

Ron nodded as he absorbed that. "Yeah, your ... prison. If you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you end up killing all the naga. Or all the Paar'zheal, I guess."

"Either term is appropriate now. And I killed no one. My race was undone by my actions, but there was no harmful intent on my part. Indeed, I foolishly thought that my plans would benefit all Paar'zheal. Back then, I was considered the greatest wizard among the naga, admired far and wide for my wisdom and power. But my heart chafed at how delineations of power tore at our society. Among the naga, there were powerful wizards, weak wizards, and the children of wizards who had no magic at all. This led to much social strife as the strong inevitably abused the weak who just as inevitably rose up with superior numbers against the strong. I judged this wrong, and in my arrogance, I sought to ensure that all naga should be equal in the blessings of Magic."

"What did you do?" Ron asked.

"I used forbidden rites to take myself beyond the gates of our world. Past the guildhalls of the Lares. Past the graveyards where the first gods slumbered fitfully in their tombs. Out, out into the deepest parts of the Wild from whence both the root and heart of Magic came. And there, I performed the greatest Working in the history of the Paar'zheal. I cast a spell that made our very  _language_  inherently magical. There would be no more need for wand or cauldron or carefully mastered incantation. The naga would speak his desire and by his will and word alone it would come to pass." He laughed again, though bitterly this time. "My people did not last a day."

"What happened?"

"Like all sentient beings, the Paar'zheal carried within themselves the capacity for self-destruction. Impetuousness when not trained to discipline and cruelty when not constrained by law or custom. Given limitless transformative power, they did not hesitate to use it for frivolous purposes or to revenge themselves on others over trivial slights. Irem, the City of 10,000 Pillars, was shattered unto ruin by what started as a disagreement over a bar tab. In the great Necropolis of Kemet, where we committed our dead to the Great Beyond, a grieving naga's wish to see his dead hatchlings once more brought forth a plague of what you would describe as inferi. The island of Mu sank beneath the waves so swiftly that I didn't even have time to learn whose ill-considered words doomed it. So it was in every city on every continent. Reality strained and then buckled and then came close to utter collapse before Magic came forth to judge us and found us lacking. And so, the Paar'zheal were undone. A great fire fell from the sky unleashing a conflagration that touched every inch of the world, and when it had passed, I alone remained to tell the story of the naga to those rare few who came to seek my blessing. But our cursed dead language echoed in the dreams of human wizards, a few of whom puzzled out its secrets to find their way here through hidden redoubts high atop the Himalayas, deep within the Amazon rainforest, buried beneath the Saharan dunes, or sunken far under the ocean depths. Of those few who have found me, only the one you call Slytherin had the wisdom to ask for something that might benefit others instead of just himself."

Ron thought about that for a few seconds. Then, an unpleasant thought came to him. "Did, um ... by any chance did a wizard named Tom Riddle visit you?"

Sardeth nodded. "He was the last before you. To my surprise, what he wanted most was knowledge of my people and how they fell into oblivion. He had much disdain for humanity, both wizards and non-wizards alike, and so he sought knowledge of how to more fully reject the humanity within himself. I found myself flattered by his admiration for my form, so I provided him with knowledge of rituals which, in time, would transfigure him bodily so as to gain naga features."

"Tom Riddle was a dark wizard. He ... did things to me."

Sardeth shrugged again. "I get so few visitors, Child of Man. Who am I to judge? If Tom Riddle's journey carries him too far into the Wild, perhaps he will join me here and I might have a companion for eternity."

Ron considered that but decided not to pursue the line of inquiry. "How long have you been here?"

"A difficult question to answer, I fear. Time in this place does not have a strictly linear progression. The entryways found by you and my various other supplicants are scattered in time as well as space, and anyway, when I grow weary of my loneliness, I have the means to force myself to slumber away centuries until my next visitor arrives. But to answer your specific question, my Great Working and the resultant destruction of my species occurred approximately three hundred years ago as you humans reckon time."

Ron nodded but then did a double-take. "Wait ... What?! Three hundred years? I'd think that more people would know about the naga if they'd ruled the world just three centuries ago before getting destroyed in a worldwide ball of fire from the heavens."

"You misapprehend my words, Child of Man. When I said that I annihilated all the other naga, I was not referring to all of my peers. I meant  _all naga who had ever existed._  The Great Fire which came down from the Heavens did not strike in my own time but rather  _tens of millions of years before._ The ancient ancestor creatures whose descendants eventually called themselves the Paar'zheal were exterminated long before any of those ancestors even bore a form such as this one. Before they even knew speech let alone magic. That is the true reason for my banishment into the infinite madness of the Wild, why I am forever barred from the world of my birth. Because I am an impossible anomaly – the last survivor of a race which never existed – and were I to slither back into your world, Reality itself would reject me and undo my existence even as it did my people."

Sardeth laughed again. "You should thank me, Child of Man. It was only after my most primitive ancestors were wiped out that room was made for yours. Tiny rodents who evolved into primates who evolved into men who evolved into wizards. You and your fellow humans are the heirs to my folly, the beneficiaries of my people's erasure. You have my congratulations."

"Um, thanks. So why don't more people, heck, any people know about this?"

"The human mind is poorly suited for travel into places which are nowhere and no-when. When you leave this place, you will remember little of your sojourn here and nothing of me or the fate of my people. Nothing save perhaps as an unconscious intuition that perhaps there is a reason that forbidden magic is best left ... forbidden."

Ron nodded. "Okay then, since you brought it up, will it be time for me to leave soon?"

"Very soon, child. The rules of my captivity say that I must reward you somehow for winning your way here. What blessing would you ask of me?"

The boy thought, but then, he remembered the lessons he'd been taught by his parents, and this time, there was no cursed diary to make him forget.

"Well no offense, Sardeth, but ... my Mum and Dad kind of taught me when I was growing up that I should be careful about what gifts I accept from strangers ... especially if they're magical creatures who, again no offense, seem a bit creepy."

Sardeth laughed once more. "For what it is worth, child, the thought of a world ruled by hairless mammals is quite disturbing to me as well." Then, Sardeth's serpentine body bent forward until his torso and head were low enough to look Ron in the eye. "Shall I simply look into your heart and grant unto you your heart's fondest wish?"

Ron blinked. "To be Head Boy and Quidditch captain?" he asked lamely.

Sardeth stared deeply into Ron's eyes, and the boy suddenly felt completely exposed, more so than if he were nude. "No, Child of Man. You want something else." Abruptly, the naga leaned back away from Ron. "But it is something I cannot give to you, though I see that for good or ill it will come to you one day regardless. Fate has marked you so. I hope when one day you are granted your desire, you find that it is worth whatever price you pay for it."

The great naga slithered back away from the boy and regarded him less intently. "So, if your fondest wish is beyond my power to grant, what other boon would you desire? I perceive that you are both too wise and too humble to ask for mere power. What other desire drives you?"

Ron thought for a moment and then looked up with sudden excitement. "You said I won't remember anything from here. Can you fix it so that I at least remember fighting off all those spiders? Maybe I won't be afraid of them as much.

Sardeth tilted his head as if studying the boy. Then, he reached forward and touched Ron's forehead with one of his fingertips while the other five arms made various occult gestures.

"It is done. The spiders of your mind are gone, defeated forever by you in psychic combat. Those nightmares at least will trouble you know more."

Ron smiled at that. "Thank you, Sardeth. I'm very grateful."

The naga bowed to Ron. "Go in peace, Child of Man."

And with that, Ron Weasley faded away from the prison-citadel of the Last Naga. Sardeth spent several minutes watching the spot from whence the boy had disappeared, a look of strange sadness on his face.

* * *

_**The Temple of Healing** _

Healer Baskar had only just made his dramatic pronouncement about the apparent loss of Ron's soul when the boy himself proved the healer wrong by gasping loudly and sitting up in bed. Naturally, there were several seconds of pandemonium, including a surprisingly high-pitched scream from Jim and a very loud expletive from Lily Potter, before Baskar yelled out. "SILENCE! You will all get hold of yourselves  _this instant_  or I will clear you from the ward!"

With that, he sat back down next Ron and conducted another psychic examination. When he was done, he spoke to the boy reassuringly but with an undercurrent of concern. "Tell me, Mr. Weasley. What's the last thing you remember?"

The boy seemed to spend a long moment in thought before finally looking up to the healer with a mild confusion. Truthfully, he had a very strong  _impression_  of listening to snakes hissing for a long time, but he couldn't give any context to that pseudo-memory. "Um, I remember Parvati falling and not being able to maintain the Samsara Charm on her, so I tried it with Parseltongue." Baskar frowned, and Ron blushed slightly. "I know you said not to, but she was  _dying_  and I couldn't think of anything else. How is she?"

"Parvati is fine, Mr. Weasley. Quite better for the last hour than you have been." The healer spent a few more minutes gazing deeply into his patients eyes. "Hmm, despite your ...  _condition_  over the last hour, you now appear to be in perfect health." And it seemed true, for color was already swiftly returning to Ron's cheeks, and he seemed full of energy. Baskar's eyes narrowed as he continued his Leglimency examination. "Better than before, in fact. Somewhat oddly, it  _appears_  that you have been completely cured of your arachnophobia!"

Baskar and several other healers spent another hour checking Ron's vitals before finally declaring that he would be kept overnight for observation but otherwise appeared to be in excellent health and should be released in the morning. Lily and Remus soon left, but Jim remained and watched over Ron throughout his medical review. For once, Jim's presence discomfited Ron, as the other boy seemed oddly intense. Possibly even angry. After the healers left, Jim sat down in a chair next to Ron's bed but said nothing at first.

"Jim?" Ron began, but the other boy put up a hand to stop him while he went through another mental calming exercise. Finally, after he'd collected himself, Jim raised a privacy Charm and then spoke.

"What. Were. You.  _Thinking_?! Baskar  _told you_  that the Charm you used could be fatal if used with Parseltongue. And you did it anyway!"

Ron sighed and shook his head. "Jim, Parvati was dying. I had to do something."

"I know. I understand she was dying. What I don't understand is why you decided that it was okay to just ... substitute your life for hers? You have so many people who love you. Why do you value your own life so little?"

"It wasn't like that!"

"Wasn't it?!" Jim's voice rose. "For the last hour, I've felt like I was back on top of the Astronomy Tower only this time I was too late to catch you. All I could think of is ' _what will I tell Ron's mother at his funeral_?' This is the  _third_ time I've watched you almost die since May, and it's killing me. I need to know that you care about yourself enough to  _want_  to live."

Ron looked down, unable to maintain eye contact at first. "I wasn't trying to kill myself, this time," he said quietly. "I genuinely thought I could heal Parvati and break contact before I got hurt. But I  _am_  a Gryffindor, Jim.  _Do what's right instead of what's easy._  Remember that? I couldn't just ignore a friend dying in front of me and more than ... well, than you could if you'd been there instead of me and known how to cast that spell. You can't expect me to be friends with the Boy-Who-Lived and not want to live up that standard. You just can't."

Jim stood up, still obviously displeased with his friend. "We'll talk a bout this more later. But you listen to me, Ronald Bilious Weasley. From now on, you are not allowed to die, do you hear me? I forbid it."

Despite his friend's intense demeanor, Ron laughed. "Orders acknowledged, captain."

Jim sighed. "Chess?"

* * *

_**That night...** _

Madanapala Patil was a proud man who loved his children. Unfortunately, in Wizarding India and for a wizard of Patil's background, loving one's children often meant making hard decisions on their behalf. Sometimes even decisions for which those same children might judge their fathers harshly. Ultimately, however, "for the good of the family" were the six magic words that, for good or ill, guided Patil's every action, including his current conversation with his daughter Parvati's future father-in-law.

"It pains me to say so, Madanapala, but I have concerns.  _Grave_  concerns." The Kumar Pasha was an exceedingly corpulent man, so much so that his jowls flapped as he emphasized the word  _grave_. His weight also made the fez on his bald head seem disproportionately tiny, almost to the point of being humorous, not that Patil found anything humorous about the current conversation.

"Certainly," the Pasha continued, "I am pleased that my prospective daughter-in-law survived her fall, though it speaks poorly of her wisdom – not to mention her grace – that she should nearly fall to her death while being given a tour of one of our properties."

Patil winced, not just because of the implied insult to Parvati, but also to the Pasha's use of the word  _prospective_  rather than the word  _future_  which had been the word used for their prior conversations over the last few years. Surely the Pasha was not reconsidering the marriage over the day's events?!

Then, as if reading Patil's mind, the Pasha continued. "My concern at the moment is with the Weasley boy and the fact that he single-handedly saved your Parvati at the risk of his own life. I have made inquiries. The Weasleys, while Pure-blooded, are a poverty-stricken family barely able to keep a roof of their heads. Certainly, I had no interest in supporting Britain's most recent Dark Lord, but neither do I have truck with whose who magical society condemns as  _blood traitors_. If nothing else, it's bad for business. Accordingly, it troubles me that the House of Patil now owes a life debt to the House of Weasley. The prospect of my Sanjeev  _buying into_ that life debt through marriage troubles me even more."

Patil opened his mouth to argue but could think of nothing to say. He could mention that Ron Weasley was a confidant of the Boy-Who-Lived, but he was unsure of whether the Pasha, who had never been to Britain, even knew who Jim Potter was. Finally, he gave up and threw himself on the Pasha's mercy.

"What would you have me do, Kumar Pasha?"

"I would have you resolve this life debt situation how ever you can, Honorable Patil. Until you do, the wedding of Sanjeev and Parvati shall be held in abeyance. Handle this, Patil. Whatever it takes."

* * *

_**The Rookery in Ottery St. Catchpole  
Sometime earlier** _

It was the middle of the night in Britain when Luna Lovegood awoke from a most peculiar dream. She had many strange dreams, most of which she did not recall when she awoke, and already the memories of this one were fading. But for once, she clearly remembered a few details. She was floating through the air in an enormous cavernous space marked by a seemingly infinite number of stone columns. And from somewhere in the distance, she distinctly heard the sound of Ron Weasley talking, or more accurately  _hissing_ , with someone or something else that hissed back to him. She did not understand hisses herself, but nevertheless, she felt that the hissing conversation which she could not understand was somehow fraught with import. The dream ended quite abruptly, which was most likely why she was startled into wakefulness and remembered any of it at all.

The girl tried to remember more of the dream but then became distracted when a trio of particularly iridescent nargles flew over her face. For some reason, they glowed more brightly than she was accustomed to, and their colors were even more brilliant than usual. From this, the girl deduced that she must have observed something in her dream which was of incredible importance but which she could not presently understand and which, by morning, she would likely not remember at all. She smiled again at the beauty of her nargles, though she also felt a tinge of sadness because as far as she knew, there were no other heliopaths with whom she could share such beauty. In fact, it seemed that those who became aware of the creatures but who lacked her special gift recoiled from them in disgust. She could never understand why anyone could possibly be disgusted by such beauty simply because its colors could be found nowhere in nature and its shape was non-Euclidean. Then, her confusion over the issue caused a fourth nargle to spring into existence just long enough for her to shrug and decide it didn't matter, thereby causing the fourth creature to fade back into the folds of her thought-space.

"Of course," she said quietly to no one, "if people are so disturbed by the sight of nargles, it's a good thing they can't see wrackspurts."

 _Those_  creatures were disturbing even to her, which made her glad to think how rarely she generated them within her own thought-space. She often wondered why that was. Was it that she found them unpleasant to see and so naturally avoided those thoughts which gave rise to them? Or was she simply a naturally serene and gentle person and so was simply untroubled by the kind of thoughts that gave birth to wrackspurts, thus making them less familiar to her than nargles? It was a conundrum, one which immediately caused yet another nargle to manifest. This one dove down at her side, flew underneath her, and came up from the other side, a behavior which Luna found rather unusual for nargles. It was at that point that Luna looked up and noticed for the first time that the ceiling seemed quite close – only two or three feet above her instead of the six or seven to which she was accustomed.

Perplexed, she rolled over and was further surprised to see that she was floating a good four feet above her own bed. And most surprising of all to Luna was the fact that there was a  _second_  Luna Lovegood still lying in the bed underneath the covers, her eyes twitching as if she were in the midst of a most engrossing dream. Another nargle flickered into existence, and Luna reached out for it only to notice for the first time how strangely translucent her body now seemed to be in addition to its uncharacteristic state of "floatiness."

Luna looked down at her own sleeping body as more and more nargles were born of her confusion. "Well I must say," she finally said to no one, "this is  _decidedly_ peculiar. Even by  _my_  standards."

* * *

_**Elsewhere...** _

With the boy sent on his way, the Last of the Naga returned to his den and prepared to slumber once more. He felt (not knew but felt) that he would have at least one more visitor before the turn of the present century. It was quite possible that it would be Ron Weasley, returning to him once more after he had grown into his power. But the truth of that matter was beyond Sardeth's sight.

The naga slithered around in a circle, coiling his lower snake-body again and again before he laid his upper body down upon the coils. His last conscious thoughts were sad ones, for he quite liked the man-child who had come to visit under such extraordinary circumstances. He was at once entertained by the boy's courage and amused by his charming collection of neuroses. But Sardeth's dominant emotion was sadness over the boy's destiny. For he sensed through the eddies of Fate that one day the young Parselmouth would indeed be blessed with his heart's true desire, with that thing he secretly wanted more than any other blessing the Last Naga could give.

One day, Ron Weasley would save the life of the Boy-Who-Lived, no matter what the cost.

* * *

_**7 DAYS UNTIL AZKABAN** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: I have a good friend whose son has been diagnosed with dyslexia and have spent some time listening to him talk about treatment options for the son. At some point, I was struck by the symptoms of dyslexia as they were explained to me and by Arthur Weasley's inability to correctly pronounce electricity and telephone even though he's implied to be an expert on Muggle culture. Added to this was Ron's famous troubles with pronouncing "Wingardium Leviosa." I mean, come on! How many of us were able to pronounce those two words perfectly after hearing Hermione say them once in the first movie.


	6. Prelude (Harry)

**CHAPTER 6: Harry Potter and the Supreme Art of War**

* * *

_**19 July 1993** _

Harry Potter opened his eyes and surveyed the Prince's Lair like a potentate studying his court. He was sitting comfortably on the Hydra Throne, and while the nine heads of the Hydra were silent at the moment, that was to be expected. The mahogany table was polished to perfection, and the brass adders atop the six chairs surrounding the table gleamed in the light. Harry turned his head to the right and saw that the silver placards identifying all of the prior Princes were in their proper place. Turning to the left, he saw that the great fireplace was cold, and with but a thought, he lit it up into a roaring blaze that further brightened the room.

Satisfied, the boy turned his attention to the nearest bookshelf and studied the titles.  ** _Harry's Charms Studies, vol. 1-2. Harry's Collected Transfiguration Insights, vol. 1-2. Harry's Potions Studies, vol. 1-2._** He read each of the titles that represented his accumulated academic knowledge in turn. Then, he moved on to the more personal volumes.  ** _Harry's Favorite Recipes_**  and  ** _Harry's Guide to the Perfect Garden_**  were right where he expected. But then, he frowned at the next few titles.  ** _Harry's Worst Nights in the Cupboard. That Time Vernon Broke Harry's Arm. Harry Hunting._** And a slim but ominous volume simply titled **_SUPPERTIME!_**

Despite his best efforts, Harry found it hard to focus on the titles to those volumes, so he turned his attention back to the academic section, only to frown ever harder when those titles began to change.  ** _Harry's Crahms Sutdies. Harry's Cloletced Trisnfagarutoin Insihgst._** The remaining academic volumes were completely unintelligible.

"No," Harry said firmly, as if willing the words to unscramble themselves. Then, his attention was diverted by movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to face the front only to realize that the great table and the six chairs surrounding it had disappeared, leaving the Prince's Lair nearly empty.

"No!" Harry said more urgently and with mounting frustration. Then, the Hydra Throne abruptly disappeared out from under him.

"NOO-oof!" Harry yelled out in surprise as he was suddenly and rudely deposited onto the bare floor of the now bare chamber, banging his head on the floor as he fell backwards. He hissed out an angry sigh and then closed his eyes.

* * *

Harry Potter opened his eyes and saw overhead the familiar ceiling of his room in Longbottom Manor. The first light of dawn was only just creeping in through the windows, and he reached up to rub his temples in hopes of forestalling the headache that was probably coming. Two weeks of practice, and he was still no closer to a stable memory palace. It was ... annoying.

Harry closed his eyes once more in frustration and thought back to his last conversation with Mr. X on the topic. Well, that topic among  _others_.

* * *

__**8 July 1993  
Room 13 at the Leaky Cauldron  
(11 days earlier)**

"I warned you, Mr. Potter, that this would be a difficult and challenging time in your Occlumency training," Mr. X said. "To progress beyond this point, you must have a stable memory palace to use as a basis for further developments of your psychic architecture. There are no short cuts."

Harry nodded but was still clearly frustrated. In the abstract, he understood what Mr. X was saying, but applying the knowledge to the inside of his own head was proving daunting.

"So explain it again, please, Mr. X. I'm trying to understand, but so far, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it."

"That is not surprising, Mr. Potter. Constructing a memory palace is one of the most difficult aspects of Occlumency training. In fact, it is the reason why most Occlumens never advance beyond level three. Had you not shown remarkable dedication so far, I would not even consider asking you to pursue this level of development at such a young age. So, to review: Your memory palace is based on a real-world location where you feel safe and in control of your surroundings. It should also be a place which is, for lack of a better word, somewhat  _cluttered._ A library or storage area, for example. A place where you can imagine yourself leaving things behind to be picked up again later. Once you have this psychic safe house fully developed, you can store your most sensitive memories there in a partitioned area of your mind, one where you don't simply hide your memories away but actively protect them with psychic traps capable of actually harming those who push too far into your mind. Ultimately, your memory palace can even be a place where you store false memories and even false personalities that you can drape over your true self to deceive an intruding Legilimens. Instead of putting up a wall against Legilimency and thereby let your enemy know that you have secrets worth protecting, you can allow the Legilimens to see  _what you want_ , and thus he will be more likely to accept your false memories as truth without digging any further."

Harry nodded. "And you've got a memory palace like that?"

"I do, though I don't anticipate you seeing it anytime soon. Or at all. However, my memory palace  _is_  important to your future training. Since you seem bent on exploring Legilimency as well as Occlumency – and against my recommendations, as I've said – I have used my own memory palace to create a set of false memories. As you practice your Legilimency against me, we will see if you can penetrate my shields to discover the false information I have left for you. Frankly, you're not paying me enough to risk letting you see my true memories. My false persona, however, will be realistic enough to replicate the process of Legilimency thought-reading."

Harry nodded, but then, Mr. X paused.

"Not to beat a dead hippogriff, but you  _do_ realize that it is  _illegal_  for someone not properly registered by the Ministry to read the thoughts of another without either permission or a judicial order signed by the Chief Warlock, do you not?"

Harry stiffened slightly. He knew all this already, but it still made him nervous to edge as close to illegal conduct as he was now contemplating. He wondered how Snape got away with it for so long. Dumbledore's influence, he supposed. "I understand all that, Mr. X."

The man sighed. "I am contracted to teach what you want to learn, Mr. Potter. But I feel compelled to say it once more. You don't  _have_ to develop your Legilimency powers just because some  _school teacher_  tells you to, no matter how much regard for him you have. There are risks, both psychological and legal, to pursuing this path."

"I appreciate your concern, Mr. X. But I have this power. And I am afraid that I might be a danger to myself and others if I don't figure out how it works and learn to use it safely."

Mr. X grimaced and shook his head. "On your own head be it then. Alright, let's start talking about Legilimency exercises."

And after a brief and rather confusing introduction, Harry spent the next hour growing increasingly frustrated at how difficult it was to read someone else's mind with Legilimency, even when the intended target was actively trying to help you do so. By the end of his first Legilimency lesson, all Harry had to show for himself was a splitting headache and a vague feeling that Mr X (or rather the secondary persona whose false memories Mr. X had encouraged him to read) liked the Tutshill Tornados Quidditch Club, dark chocolate, and possibly a large orange tabby. Actual memories were still beyond the boy.

At the end of the lesson, Harry looked at the clock and saw that he still had a few more minutes before Artie and Mr. Y came in to oversee the Memory Lock Charm and ensure that Mr. X remembered nothing he might have learned from his psychic lessons with Harry. The boy thought for a moment and decided that there was no time like the present.

"Mr. X, before we break for the day, I have a question for you. Or more accurately ... an offer. I happen to know someone who is looking for a high level Legilimens for a job."

The other man, whose features Harry couldn't truly see due to special Notice Me Not Charms, studied the boy quizzically. "A ... job. I find it interesting how much portent you can impose on a one-syllable word like ' _job,_ ' Mr. Potter. If I didn't know you better, I'd be certain that this  _job_  was something of which the Ministry might disapprove."

Harry bit his lip. For one of the few times since entering Hogwarts, he was unsure of how to proceed in a conversation with someone else. He assumed it was because the other man was a far better Occlumens and Legilimens than he would likely ever be. Finally, he decided to bite the bullet, since the man was not expected to remember anything Harry told him in just a few minutes.

"Well, to be honest, it's not  _entirely_ legal." Harry swallowed. "Actually, in all honestly, it's pretty wildly illegal. But I can promise that it will pay  _a lot_. And I am fairly comfortable in saying there's no way you'll get caught. My ... friend has ... some minds he needs read. And while I admit it's technically a criminal enterprise, I can promise you that it's for a good cause."

Mr. X smirked. "And what sort of good cause can come from something so nefarious that you are this evasive about what is entailed, Mr. Potter?"

Harry looked away for a second. Then, he realized what he needed to say. "When we first met, you were afraid for your family in the event that Voldemort returned. My friend wants to make sure that never happens, but he needs a good Legilimens to ensure it."

Mr. X was silent for a good long moment. "You need a Legilimens ... to forestall the return of You-Know-Who? I would say that I must think on this, but that will be a problem since my memories of this conversation will soon be erased."

"We'll use a different password to lock your memories of today, and I'll send an owl unlocking them tomorrow. Naturally, we won't tell you everything until you've sworn some pretty tough oaths, and I'll make sure you have the right to back out if you decide you won't want to be a part of it once you know all the details."

Mr. X nodded. "And how much is  _a lot_  of money?"

Harry told him, and had Mr. X not been a master Occlumens, the figure quoted might well have given him a coughing.

* * *

__**19 July 1993  
Longbottom Manor  
5:45 a.m.**

As the memories of his last Occlumency lesson ran their course, Harry sat up in his bed with some frustration. He'd never really broken himself of the Dursley-instilled habit of waking early, and he'd thought the pre-dawn hours might be a good time for meditation. But so far, his progress had been less than he'd hoped, in part because maintaining any sort of inner peace despite the enormous stresses of his summer break taxed his Occlumency to the utmost. Theo. Neville. Lessons with Mr. X and Alastor Moody. Regulus Black's crazy schemes. Against all that, the degree of serenity needed to advance in his Occlumency training seemed impossible.

" _I need something distracting,_ " he thought to himself. His first thought was gardening which was his go-to activity for mental distraction, but it was too early for that. Besides, Neville would have a fit if he ever learned that Harry had dared to touch anything in the Longbottom family garden. And since Harry's relationship with Neville had become alarmingly strained in the past few weeks, he didn't want to do anything else to put pressure on it.

The boy grimaced in anger and once again cursed the name of Tiberius Nott. What the ex-Death Eater had done to Theo was bad enough, but now it was affecting another of Harry's best friends as well. According to Lady Augusta, the problem was that Neville was wearing his Heir's Ring which keyed him in magically to the oaths that bound House Longbottom to the Wizengamot and therefore, indirectly, to House Nott. In fact, it was worse for Neville than for most Wizengamot heirs because his parents were completely incapacitated at the moment. Consequently, Neville was being affected as if he himself were an actual Lord, even though he wouldn't be able to formally take that role for several years to come. And yet, when Harry had asked if Neville couldn't simply take off the Heir's Ring for a while, Augusta had looked so horrified by the idea that he'd never brought it up again.

" _And worst of all_ ," Harry thought ruefully, " _Neville really loves his parents._ " Perhaps the cruelest aspect of the Ultimate Sanction effect, Neville's deep devotion to his near-comatose parents gave him a strong personal desire to live up to their memories by being the best Lord Longbottom he could be. And the Ultimate Sanction had apparently twisted that admirable impulse to render the boy even less able to resist the compulsion to hate Theo and, increasingly, anyone else who dared to support Theo.

His thoughts churning, Harry found it impossible to either return to his memory palace or to sleep. But then, he remembered one of the books on the shelf of his Memory Palace and found inspiration. The boy jumped out of bed, pulled on his robe, and made his way to the Longbottom kitchens.

Thirty minutes later, Harry was halfway through the prep-work for a Quiche Amandine (and feeling considerably more relaxed) when he was surprised by a soft cough from behind him. It was Hoskins, the senior of the Longbottoms' two house elves, regarding him with a mixture of surprise and concern.

The elf seemed almost embarrassed, but he persevered. "Apologies, Master Harry but ... surely Master Harry knows that if he desires an early breakfast, he need only call out for a house elf." Then, Hoskins' goggle eyes narrowed angrily. "Has the Dobby elf  _refused a summons_?" the elf said, his voice rising slightly in what passed for fury among his kind.

"No, no," Harry said quickly. "I haven't called on Dobby or anyone else, Hoskins." Suddenly, the boy blushed slightly as he realized how silly getting up to cook breakfast would seem to a house elf, let alone to another wizard. "Honestly, I'm not actually hungry. I'm just ... frustrated by some things and couldn't sleep. I thought cooking might relax me."

As expected, Hoskins gave Harry a look that suggested (respectfully) that he thought the boy might be mad. "Master Harry," the elf said delicately, "cooking ... is  _servants'_  work."

Harry shrugged. "I know. When I learned how to cook, I was still a servant."

That response seemed to leave the creature even more flummoxed. "Master Harry ... was a servant? For another wizard?"

"No," Harry blushed slightly. "... Muggles."

Hoskins said nothing, but his eyes widened in surprise. Then, he shook his head, as if realizing he'd gotten off track. "That may be so, Master Harry. But ... and Hoskins says this with the utmost respect, sir ... it is the job of us house elves to see that those who dwell in the House of Longbottom are properly..."

"Fed and watered?" Harry finished with a smile. Hoskins nodded. Harry looked back at his prep-work longingly. To his surprise, cooking – for pleasure, not out of servitude – really was relaxing and enjoyable to him. He turned back to the elf. "What if nobody here eats it?" he asked.

Hoskins blinked twice. "Master Harry wishes to cook ... not to eat ... but solely for pleasure?" Harry nodded. The elf considered that for a moment, and then his face suddenly brightened. "Can Hoskins assist?" he said cheerfully. Harry laughed and directed the house elf to begin chopping up some arugula.

* * *

_**18 July 1993  
Excerpt from a letter** _

_So all that happened. Near death experience from attempted Sicilian revenge, and all leading up to an exciting finish in an old Italian church. It was like something from a wizarding Francis Ford Coppola. Wait, never mind. You've never actually watched any_ _good_ _movies._

_Anyway, I wanted to give you a heads up. Hermione has a bee in her bonnet about forming some sort of "support group" for Theo. Which, well, I'm certainly happy to support the third member of the "Silver Trio" (I still want T-shirts!), but I can't imagine how the ham-fisted Mugglish approach she has in mind will do anything except make things worse for Theo_ _and_ _us. Try to make her see reason, please! But don't tell her I said anything!_

_Cheers, BZ_

* * *

_**19 July 1993  
1:08 p.m.  
**_" __ **The Training Room"**  
Hogsmeade

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Harry winced at the bellowing voice of his tutor ... and also from the pain from his backside upon which he had just landed. He'd started his summer lessons with the retired auror just a week after getting back from Hogwarts. Initially, he'd been hoping for an emphasis in dueling, and Moody seemed to be amenable. So every lesson began with a dueling match between Moody and his charges (initially Neville had accompanied Harry to these lessons), and as soon as he'd disarmed his pupils, Moody would offer a brief critique before moving on to less invigorating topics like Potions, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy, the latter two being classes Harry would study as electives beginning in his Third Year. Moody also required a full three feet of parchment before the next session in which Harry was to outline every single spell cast during the previous duel and how to counteract or otherwise overcome it. Neville, who had never been particularly interested in dueling, was exempt from that assignment, and since Moody rarely used the same spell twice, Harry's essays were becoming quite expansive.

Alastor Moody, true to his reputation, was  _a lot_  harder to duel than even the five Hogwarts upperclassmen Harry had taken down simultaneously the previous June. Since summer lessons had started, his longest time to last against Moody had been around two minutes, but he was usually disarmed, flat on his back, or both within thirty seconds. Thus far, he had never successfully disarmed Moody even once. Even dilating didn't seem to help at all since the man almost always cast silently and his wand movements were incredibly fast even at Harry's maximum dilation. Worse, he regularly switched wand hands in the middle of the duel (which Harry didn't even know was possible until the first time Moody did it), and Harry was completely unable to recognize wand patterns cast left-handed rather than right-handed when under the time pressure of a duel.

Today's lesson had been particularly embarrassing. The boy had thought he was doing exceptionally well for a change, lasting for over two minutes and eventually hitting Moody with an Expelliarmus for the very first time. But to his surprise, the Moody he hit simply popped out of existence, and Harry was immediately struck from behind by the  _real_  Moody's Disarming Charm and knocked down.

"The Doppelganger Defense Charm!" Moody exclaimed as his true form shimmered into view. "It creates an illusory duplicate of yourself to distract your enemies. With enough concentration, you can make it talk and walk around however you want. Cast it along with the Disillusionment Charm, and you can just sit back and watch while your enemy wastes his time and energy boxing with shadows. It's almost relaxing."

Harry, who was still laying on the floor, considered that. Then, his eyebrows furrowed. "Wait a second! You must have had that spell active since before we got here! We carried on a conversation!"

"Yep," Moody said, his lip curling up on one side. "A four-minute-long conversation followed by a two-minute duel with a nonexistent person. And you noticed  _nothing_  out of the ordinary. Even though the doppelganger casts no shadow, doesn't generate the sounds of footsteps when moving – and that alone should have been a dead giveaway what with my leg and all – and was a helluva lot more agile in combat than me, you never once considered the possibility that you were fighting a mere distraction the whole time until I got bored and took you out from behind. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Harry sighed and climbed to his feet. To add to all his other disadvantages, dueling with Moody had become even tougher now that it was one-on-one. Not that Neville Longbottom was a spectacular duelist, but he at least provided an occasional distraction. However, just two days earlier, Lady Augusta, on the supposed grounds that she was getting tired of her grandson's "moodiness," had sent Neville off on a tour of the family's African holdings along with Cousin Reginald. Neville would be gone for six weeks, returning just a few days before the start of term. Harry would miss his friend, but for the time being, Neville's absence was necessary. Indeed, as far as Lady Augusta was concerned, it was a requirement.

"Isn't this a bit unfair?" Harry inquired of his tutor. "I mean, in addition to  _every other_ advantage that ' _The Greatest Auror in History_ ' has, you also get a whole week to set up some impossibly devious strategy for kicking my teeth in!"

Moody let loose with a strange gargling sound that Harry had learned was how he laughed, and the corner of his mouth crinkled up in another malformed sneer. "Never thought I'd live to see a Slytherin whining about someone else being ' _impossibly devious._ ' My job is (a) to make sure you do well in your classes and (b) to prepare you to deal with the unexpected. That's why you're paying me the big bucks out of that Gringotts account your old man doesn't know about."

Harry froze, and after a few seconds, Moody let loose with another gargling laugh. "Come on, kid. Give me a  _little_ credit. And stop worrying. I know you've got an account James Potter doesn't know about. I assume it's from an  _inheritance_  that he  _also_  doesn't know about. But once I was satisfied that my pay was on the up-and-up and not from some dark wizard who wanted to get the drop on me, I stopped giving a crap about what mysterious family you and your mother are descended from. I've got enough things to be paranoid about as it is without getting drawn into your tedious domestic drama."

"You were actually worried that I hired you for my tutor as part of an assassination plot?!"

"Lad, if you  _had_  hired me for your tutor as part of an assassination plot, it would only be the fourth most byzantine and overcomplicated assassination plot I've had to dodge in my lifetime."

Harry shook his head. "Well, now that we're  _provisionally_  agreed that I'm not an assassin, what's next for today?"

The ex-auror studied Harry for a few seconds, and then his lip crinkled up once more. "Well, first of all, I'm giving you a quick rematch. You just complained that I had illusion spells already running when you came in. Which was obviously unfair of me since no one who tries to kill you in the future would  _ever_  engage in  _advance preparation_  or anything silly like that. So to make it up to you, we'll duel again. And this time, I'll let you go first."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Moody popped his wand back out of his holster but then held it pointing straight off to the side. "You try to disarm me. I promise I won't cast any spells until after you've cast your first one."

Harry stared at his tutor for a good three seconds. He even dilated slightly to spend more time trying to figure out the catch. Then, when he couldn't think of one, he fired off the fastest Disarming Spell he could. " _ **EXPELLIARMUS!**_ "

But to Harry's amazement, as soon as he'd released the spell, Moody simply relaxed his fingers and let his own wand clatter to the floor. The Expelliarmus washed over Moody to no effect, and as soon as the wave of magic had passed ineffectually, Moody twitched his fingers slightly and his wand shot back up into his hand. Instantly, he whipped out a silent Expelliarmus of his own, and Harry was disarmed before he could wipe the shocked look off of his face.

"Hmph. That was less than two seconds, Potter. You were more impressive when you were fighting my doppelganger."

"That ... what ..." Harry paused, closed his eyes, and focused himself. "Okay, what just happened?"

"Theory is as important as practice, Potter. Always know what the spells you cast actually do! Expelliarmus – what is it?"

The boy blinked in confusion at the seemingly obvious question. "It's the Disarming Charm."

"And what does that mean?"

"Um, it ... disarms people?"

"Right. So what happens when you use it on an unarmed opponent?"

Harry opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again as his eyes lit up in understanding. "Nothing, obviously. If it can't disarm someone, then it has no other effect to perform."

"Correct, as you just saw in an object lesson. That's a neat trick that can get you out of a jam if you're in a one-on-one fight with somebody who gets the drop on you and goes for the disarm."

Harry's eyes narrowed in concentration. "Hang on a minute. Expelliarmus doesn't  _just_  disarm. I've seen it knock people across the room."

"I've no doubt. A high-powered Expelliarmus can strike with considerable force. Nevertheless, those people  _were_  armed in some fashion at the time. Or at least holding something in their hands, which satisfies the spell's definition of 'armed.' Otherwise, they wouldn't have been affected, just as I wasn't just now. It's a simple trick. Just toss your wand aside and then summon it back wandlessly. You have to time it just right so you're unarmed when the spell hits but still have time to summon the wand back and cast with it before your opponent can get off a second, more dangerous spell. You also have to let the wand fall far enough from your hand that the spell doesn't consider your armed even though it's no longer on your person. Generally, at least two to three feet from your wand hand."

"A simple trick?" Harry said in disbelief. "It requires  _wandless magic_!"

"Yep. Which is why that's on the menu for today and the rest of this summer."

The boy paused in surprise, and then his face lit up excitedly. "You're teaching me wandless magic?! But it's the middle of July! Do you really think I can learn wandless magic before school starts?"

Moody scoffed. "Merlin, no! I think  _maybe_  if you push yourself, you can learn one or two wandless spells by the end of your Fifth Year, which will be worth a boatload of points on your Charms and DADA OWLS. You're talented for your age, boy, I'll give you that. But wandless magic is a time-intensive process, and at your age, you simply haven't  _used_  any of the spells you know often enough to develop the sense-memory you need to cast them wandlessly. Right now, you'll be doing good just to learn to cast spells silently and  _that_  just requires you to think extra hard. Today, I'm just explaining the basics of wandless magic and giving you a few exercises to try at home."

"At home?" Harry asked in surprise. "But what about the Trace?"

The man gave him a withering look. "Potter, what is the Trace  _on_?"

"My wand ... oh! So wandless magic doesn't count as underage magic?"

"Of course it does! It's just a kind of underage magic that can't be detected unless you're dumb enough to do it in front of a Ministry official. I'm assuming you're not nearly that dumb, are you?"

Harry sighed at the implied rebuke. "No sir. I'll be very careful."

"Good. Now what spell do you think you should start with?"

Harry thought for a moment. His first instinct was Serpensortia, but he doubted that was an acceptable answer. "Um, Protego?"

"DUMB!" Moody barked. "Spell power requirements increase by a factor of three to five when casting without a wand, and no wizard alive except Dumbledore or Voldie could  _possibly_  cast a wandless Protego for more than a few seconds without fainting. We start with  _Accio_. Specifically,  _Accio Wand_. Since, should you be so foolish as to get caught without your wand, you number one priority should be to get it back!"

Harry flushed, as Moody summoned a nearby chair for him to sit in and take notes before drawing burning figures in the air with the Pyrologos Charm.

"Now then, here is wandless casting in a nutshell.  _This_ ," he said while drawing a large flaming circle, "is your magical core. And this..." He drew a second large circle and filled it with tiny dots of fire. "... is your brain, or what passes for one in your case. Each dot represents a single spell with which you are exceptionally proficient. Learning to cast a spell wandlessly requires you to link one of these spells directly to your core with a psychic strand that represents the sum total of your experience with casting that particular spell."

He flicked his wand, and a thin trail of fire stretched from one of the dots in the "mind circle" over to the larger "core circle."

"Create a link like that, and you bypass the requirement of using a wand that the Merlinian system imposes on you by virtue of your being a British wizard and a Hogwarts student. Of course, there's not any literal strand, psychic or otherwise. That's just a metaphor to help you understand the concept." Moody paused. "Actually, to be honest, your ' _magical core_ ' is also basically a metaphor. Lots of people talk about it, especially the Big Brains in the Unspeakables and your upper-end Healers. But the truth is, if somebody dissected you down to your individual cells and sifted through them for a year, they'd never find anything tangible that might be described as a magical core."

"Well, what  _is_  a magical core, then?" Harry asked. He'd heard the term used several times but never gotten an explanation of it.

Moody shrugged. "Depends on who you ask. Some say it's something inside you that generates the power that fuels your magic, whether something immaterial that's part of your aura or some part of your body that's below the level of a cell and too small to detect. Others say its more like a imperceptible portal that lets you draw energy from, well,  _somewhere else_. Some people say it's your soul, but I'm not about to wade into  _that_ metaphysical thicket today. My point is, nobody knows for sure. What is known is that while the core cannot be directly perceived or measured, you can estimate someone's core strength by various magical tests. The Lubinsky-Chang test is the most accurate, but it was invented by foreigners, so here in Britain, we stubbornly cling to the Belby-Cadwallader test for measuring core size. Under that standard, your core would be rated  _Theta-Green_ , which is rather impressive for someone not yet thirteen. Naturally, core size, in this case, doesn't mean physically big or small but rather refers to magical output. Someone with a larger core can cast more spells before tiring; can cast more physically demanding spells like shields, Patronuses, and Unforgivables; and can master more wandless spells than someone with a weaker core. That last bit is most important to our current discussion because you only have a finite number of these hypothetical metaphorical psychic strands and that number is limited according to your core size. In other words, there's a strict limit on the total number of spells you can possibly learn to cast without a wand. Most wizards don't even bother to learn more than four or five. For the typical experienced auror, it's probably twenty or thirty. I personally know sixty-two wandless spells. For someone like Dumbledore or Voldie, it's probably a hundred or more."

Then, he grimaced in annoyance. "And as much as it pains me to say it, blood purity plays a role.  _Usually_. Wizards and witches whose blood purity goes back for several generations  _generally_  have larger cores than Muggleborns, which is part of the reason for historical discrimination against Muggleborns.  _But_ some Muggleborns have unusually large cores, bigger than the typical Pureblood even, for reasons no one understands. And you will be pleased to know that the offspring of Muggleborns and Purebloods like yourself almost always have strong cores and frequently develop  _very_ strong cores. I happen to know that Albus Dumbledore's mother was a Muggle-born, and while the Dumbledores are not an old family it is considered a Pureblood one."

"Wait a minute," Harry interrupted in disbelief. "You mean, there's actually something to Pureblood idealogy?!"

"What I mean, Potter, is that there are tangible ways in which most Muggleborns are at a disadvantage relative to Purebloods in terms of magical potential, although those disadvantages are offset by little things like being less likely to go nuts at some point because you're the product of six generations of intermarried cousins. That said, there are a lot of so-called reasons offered in favor of blood supremacy, most of which are bollocks but some of which have a grain of legitimacy. And if the Purebloods had any damned sense, they'd actively try to intermarry with the more powerful Muggleborns since, as I just said, the resulting Halfblood offspring usually have stronger cores than other Purebloods from their peer group."

"So why don't they? Marry Muggleborns, I mean."

By that point, Moody was growing annoyed at how his lesson plan was being diverted by politics. "Short answer? The old families don't want to marry Muggleborns because they don't provide the political and financial benefits of marrying into  _other_  old families. And most everybody else dislikes Muggleborns because of propaganda spread  _by_  the old families to discourage lesser Pureblood families from intermarrying with them and thereby producing stronger Halfblood offspring that might someday overturn the Wizengamot apple cart." He sighed grumpily. "Honestly, Potter, you  _are_  a Slytherin, aren't you? Ask around! I'm sure you'll find no shortage of reasons, some plausible, some absurd, for why you should look down on Muggleborns."

"Were you a Slytherin?" Harry asked innocently.

Moody snorted. "Hufflepuff, if you must know. Class of 1951." Then, Moody noticed the surprised expression on Harry's face. "Does that surprise you, boy? That someone with my background could have been a Hufflepuff?"

"No sir," Harry said sincerely. "I have great respect for Hufflepuffs. It's just ... you're the first Hufflepuff I've ever met who, well,  _never smiled._ "

The man gave his rasping laugh again, and the left side of his mouth crept upwards once more. "Nerve damage! From the same curse that cost me my eye! The right side of my face is permanently incapable of smiling properly. In fact, Potter, I'll have you know that when I graduated top of my class from the Auror Academy,  _Witch Weekly_  picked me for their  _Most Charming Smile_  Award."

At that, Harry looked even more shocked.

"What, Potter?" the man said irritably. "Did you think Gilderoy Lockhart invented the damned thing?"

* * *

_**Five Hours Later ...** _

Carefully, Harry climbed up the ladder that led out of Moody's steamer trunk and hauled himself over the side. The trunk itself was in a room in the Three Broomsticks Inn in Hogsmeade where the ex-auror had rented a room for the summer even though he never slept in the bed he'd paid for. Harry knew about Expansion Charms and even had a trunk of his own containing a small room to sleep in, but he was amazed at the advanced Charm work that went into Moody's portable castle and fortress. He counted fifteen rooms, including a fully-stocked potions lab, a small greenhouse lit by an artificial sun, and "the Training Room," which was a full-sized perfect reproduction of a similar room at the Auror Academy.

"Your trunk is beyond impressive, Mr. Moody," Harry said. "But what will you do if somebody simply  _steals_  it while you're inside of it."

Moody snorted contemptuously. "If anyone manages to even touch this trunk without my permission, Potter, they  _deserve_  to catch me."

Harry smiled at that, shook the man's hand, and made his way downstairs to the Floo. Along the way, he noticed a couple sitting in a dim corner snogging rather madly. The man was an off-duty auror who Harry recognized as Michael Proudfoot. The woman, a rather busty Scandinavian-looking blonde, had been introduced to him once before as "Maria Gambrelli." Harry shook his head, passed over to the Floo, and made his way back to Longbottom Manor.

That night, he spent almost thirty minutes gesturing furiously at the wand on his nightstand while thinking " _ **ACCIO WAND**_ " as loudly as he could. But the wand never moved.

* * *

_**20 July 1993  
Excerpts from three letters** _

_Harry, I know that your friendship with Theo_ _No-Name has always been important to you. But the Potter-Longbottom-Greengrass alliance is still relatively young. And while my family is extremely grateful for the role you played in our elevation to Ancient and Noble status, we simply cannot threaten our status and integrity by continuing to associate with the outcast. My father has been very clear on this, and while I sympathize with the outcast's condition, I must stand with my family. I hope you will allow Slytherin wisdom to guide you in these matters instead of Hufflepuffian sentimentality or, worse, Gryffindorish defiance of cultural standards._

_Your friend and house-mate,_

_Daphne Greengrass_

_Heiress Presumptive of the Ancient and Noble House of Greengrass_

* * *

_To be honest, Harry, I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place. You know what that means, right? I mean, you're Muggle-raised. I said that to Daphne the other day, and she'd honestly never heard the expression before. Anyway, I don't have any negative feelings about Theo, and I certainly don't want to do anything to hurt him anymore than he already has been by his awful excuse for a father. But ... I'm sorry, Harry, but the simple fact is that I owe way too much to the Greengrass family for everything they've done for me and for my mother. I don't think I can ever truly pay them back, but at a minimum I just can't publicly go against them on something as important in high society as this Ultimate Sanction rubbish appears to be. Of course, you being you, I'm sure you'll find a way around it, and if I can help with that without it getting back to Daphne or her family, I'll do my best._

_Hope you enjoy the rest of your summer,_

_Tracey Davis_

* * *

_All I know, Harry, is that Missy says that "we owe Harry Potter big time," and Bulstrodes pay their debts. If you want me to cut Theo Whatever-His-Name-Is-Now out completely, I'm fine with that. And if you want me to knock the block off of anyone who messes with him, I'm fine with that too. Daddy always said he wants his little girls to know how to throw a punch as well as any boy can._

_Millicent Bulstrode_

_P.S. – Any news on whether there might be an opening for Beater?_

* * *

__**21 July 1993  
1:00 p.m.  
Longbottom Manor**

As Marcus Flint stepped out of the fireplace in the Longbottom parlor, he looked around nervously and took in the opulent scene. He was wearing his best robes, along with his lucky tie, the one made of acromantula silk that he'd use to save Rufus Scrimgeour's life the previous summer. Nevertheless, once at Longbottom Manor, he suddenly felt like a peasant summoned to meet with a prince of the realm. Harry was on hand to welcome him and help brush the floo powder off his robes, and behind him was the lady of the house, the notorious and terrifying Augusta Longbottom.

"Welcome to Longbottom Manor, young man," she said imperiously. "Harry has told me much about you."

"All good, I hope," Marcus replied, but her expression said nothing about whether Harry's report had been good or not. He smiled nervously at the formidable woman and then stopped after he realized how ridiculous fake smiles felt on his face. For her part, Lady Augusta ignored his small joke completely.

"As I'm sure Harry has told you, I and some associates wish to hire your services for the summer, for which you will be reimbursed with enough galleons to pay for your Eighth Year Hogwarts tuition and living expenses. However, these matters are quite sensitive, and you will be required to swear an Unbreakable Vow never to discuss what you hear today regardless of whether you accept our job offer or not."

Marcus swallowed with some difficulty at the thought of an Unbreakable Vow. Then, he looked over at Harry who responded with an encouraging nod. Marcus took a deep breath. This was the path to the future, and an Unbreakable Vow would be a small price to pay if it led to the Auror Academy. "What sort of vow, Lady Augusta?"

Augusta handed Marcus a small card upon which the proposed vow was written. Marcus found nothing  _immediately_  objectionable in it, and so, at the witch's direction, he clasped arms with Harry and repeated the vow as she directed.

_"I, Marcus Flint, do swear on my life and magic that I will never reveal any confidential matters that I learn today as part of the offer of employment I am here to receive, nor will I reveal any information about the tasks I am to perform should I choose to accept the offer."_

Satisfied, Augusta turned and led the two boys down a corridor while Marcus chatted amiably but still nervously about what sort of job might be in the offing for this level of secrecy. For his part, Harry was politely evasive in answering his concerns. Then, Marcus froze in shock as Augusta threw open the doors to a conference room and strode in to take a seat next to her other two guests already seated around a circular oaken conference table. One was an Asian man who Marcus didn't recognize. The other was a man he knew all too well. For a few seconds, Marcus looked over at Harry in shock and something close to betrayal before turning back to the others in the room.

"I think I need to know what the job is now," he said quietly as he walked slowly forward. Harry moved past him to take a seat alongside Augusta and the other two men as the doors to the chamber slowly closed on their own.

"A fair question, Mr. Flint," said Lucius Malfoy in a languid tone. "To greatly oversimplify things, we require your assistance in an act of High Treason."

* * *

_**Meanwhile, in Diagon Alley (a brief interlude) ...** _

The two witches made their way casually down Diagon Alley peering in windows and occasionally ducking into dress shops to see what new fashions were on display. One was chattering animatedly in her excitement to be outside shopping on a beautiful summer day. The other had a long-suffering air, as if shopping were a necessary evil. The pair stopped in front Twilfitt and Tattings as the first witch became excited over a three piece witch's ensemble in a vivid pink. Her companion was less than enthused.

"Oooh, Dolores! Look at this one! Isn't it just  _adorable_!" Violetta Edgecombe practically squealed with delight. Next to her, Dolores Umbridge sighed patiently.

"Vi, dear," Umbridge replied, "you've persuaded me against my better judgment that since I'm getting a promotion to work directly for the Minister, I need to improve my wardrobe. I had assumed the goal was to look more professional, not ...  _adorable_. And yet everything you've had me look at today has been gaudy things that look less like what a professional witch should be wearing and more like ... like something one might wear  _to catch a beau!_ "

"Oh pish-posh, Dolores! That's absurd!" Violetta said diffidently. Dolores simply stared her until she finally broke. "Oh alright! Yes, I thought it might be a good idea for you to wear things that might catch Cornelius Fudge's eye. I mean, you're a single woman and he's a single man ..."

"Vi, he's single because  _his wife passed away_ only three years ago! Yes, he's a handsome, unattached man in a powerful position. But I'm not going to just ...  _fling_  myself at him like some scarlet woman. It's unbecoming. Honestly, I'm still embarrassed over how I giggled in his office like a school girl when he offered me the job! And anyway, if he were that sort of man, he'd have just hired some pretty young thing who's fresh out of Hogwarts and was working in the secretarial pool instead of a dowdy old frump like me."

"You're not old, Dolores, not by today's standards. And if you're a dowdy frump, it's because you've chosen to be." Violetta sighed in exasperation. "Dolores, we've been best friends since our school days. I only say this because I care about you. It's been fifteen years since Jack died..." Umbridge stiffened slightly. "... and just a few weeks before what should have been your wedding day! Now, I know he was a wonderful man and you loved him dearly. And I also know his death was a horrible tragic affair that has affected you deeply. But fifteen years is too long to wear widow's weeds for a man you never actually married!"

Dolores Umbridge started to respond but couldn't. Instead, she looked away for a moment to compose herself. Then, she turned back to her closest friend. "I ... understand what you're saying, Violetta. And perhaps you're right. Honestly, I think I just didn't want to be hurt again. Nor did I want the distraction of dating while I was struggling to build a career despite the mistakes I made when I was young."

At that, perhaps a tiny hint of bitterness crept into Umbridge's voice. Once, she'd had dreams of being a teacher, and she'd been one of the rare few to pursue a Mastery in Magical History in the hopes that if her credentials were good enough, she might be able to present herself as an alternative candidate to the ghostly Cuthbert Binns despite the institutional bias against Halfbloods like her. Then, when she was barely halfway through her Mastery, she finally learned how Binns got the Professor of Magical History job in the first place, why he was still in the job despite the handicap of being dead, and why he would most likely continue to hold the job until long after she was dead herself. At that point, she abandoned her Mastery uncompleted and settled for a job as an archivist for the Department of Magical Education, a dead end position that provided a decent living for her and her small assortment of cats but little in the way of personal satisfaction.

"I suppose now that I've won a decent promotion, perhaps I should consider dating again. But I'm  _not_  going to throw myself at the Minister of Magic! It's just ... improper!"

Dolores turned back to the dummy in the window and shuddered. "And I'm definitely not wearing anything  _pink!_ "

* * *

 __ **22 July 1993**  
2:00 p.m.  
The Three Broomsticks Inn  
Hogsmeade

Marcus Flint appeared in front of the Three Broomsticks in a flash of apparation, his battered trunk in one hand and his broomstick in the other. Tired and sore from the morning he'd had and the decisions he'd made, he entered the inn and shuffled up to the bar. Behind it stood the owner, Madame Rosmerta, who regarded the young Slytherin with some small amount of suspicion. Unlike the Hogs Head Inn where drunken brawls seemed a nightly occurrence, Rosmerta ran the Three Broomsticks as a reputable place, and the Slytherin in front of her looked like he'd just been in a fight himself, as his rapidly swelling black eye could attest.

Undaunted, Flint slapped ten galleons onto the bar. "I'd like a room please. Here's a down payment for the rest of the summer." He paused. "And I'd also like a bottle of firewhiskey sent up to my room as well."

Rosmerta sniffed. "Are you old enough to handle firewhiskey, boy?"

Flint snorted and then winced from the pain in his eye. "I'm of age. There's no Trace on me. And I just told my da' to go to Hell and left his house forever. If that doesn't make me old enough for firewhiskey, what does?"

Rosmerta studied Marcus carefully before sweeping the galleons off the counter into her hand. "Jamie!" she called out to the barman, "show this man up to Room 4. And get him a bottle of firewhiskey and an ice pack."

* * *

__**22 July 1993  
10 p.m.  
Harry's room at Longbottom Manor**

"It's not that I don't want to tell my Dad about you lot," Harry lied through his teeth. "But this is my one chance to find out what he and his friends were like back when they were my age. No offense, Prongs, but now that he's Chief Auror, Dad's a bit of a stick in the mud. I'm sure if I actually told him I had the Map, he'd confiscate it for fear I'd use it for pranks or anything else that might reflect badly on him."

_**Mr. Prongs is aghast at the suggestion that he would ever become so stodgy!** _

_**Mr. Moony reminds Mr. Prongs that everyone grows up eventually, even Marauders.** _

__**Mr. Padfoot reluctantly suggests that this may well be the influence of the  
Hell-Flower and reminds Mr. Prongs that he warned Mr Prongs repeatedly of  
the dangers of getting "whipped."**

_**Mr. Moony and Mr. Wormtail gasp in shock and step slowly away.** _

__**Mr. Prongs snarls angrily and recommends that Mr. Padfoot  
shut his gob before we all find out whether it's actually possible  
to get into a fistfight in here!**

"Whoa, guys!" Harry said, as he also had no desire to see if the Marauders' Map was capable of tearing itself apart. "Calm down! And Padfoot? I think you should apologize to Prongs for calling his future wife and my mother ' _the Hell-Flower_.'"

" _ **Hmph! Very well, Mr. Padfoot apologizes for his intemperate remarks.  
** **Although**_ _ **he would remind all present that it was Mr. Prongs who  
came up with the nickname **_ _ **Hell-Flower**_ __ **after the witch in question used**  
a Switching Spell during Fourth Year Transfiguration to sympathetically  
link his underpants with a bottle of deep-heating ointment!"  


" _ **Mr. Prongs blushes with embarrassment but accepts the apology gracefully."**_

" _ **Mr. Moony and Mr. Wormtail snicker softly."**_

Despite himself, Harry chuckled at the anecdote as well and wondered once again how on earth his parents ever got together.

" __ **Mr. Prongs sighs discontentedly and tries to get the conversation back on track,**  
though it should seem apparent to all, including Mr. Son-of-Prongs, that this Map,  
as ingenious as it is, is a poor medium for learning about what teen-aged James Potter  
was like. Mr. Prongs is, after all, at best an imperfect copy of the original dashing lad."

"Well, actually," Harry said aloud. "I've been thinking about that. I had a conversation with my ... well, with a friend who told me he had an encounter with a diary once that was based on enchantments very similar to those used to make the Marauders' Map. And this diary could actually draw readers inside of itself to show them actual memories. Do you think it might be possible for you guys to do that?"

The Map did not respond immediately, and for a moment, Harry feared he'd broken it somehow. He honestly wasn't sure why he was so interested in finding out more about young James Potter. Maybe he hoped to find out why the older version had held such disdain towards him for so long. Or maybe he was just looking for blackmail material. Finally, more words appeared on the Map.

" __ **Harry, it's Mr. Moony here. What you propose is ... interesting, and also, I think,  
within the design parameters of the Map. I, er, I mean Mr. Moony, was the actual  
designer of the spells used, so I think I'm the most qualified to know.**

_**I mean Mr. Moony was.** _

_**Dammit.** _

_**Mr. Moony utterly hates this third-person speech gag that Mr. Padfoot  
insisted on for some silly reason.** _

_**Anyway, let us think about this for a few days and check back, okay?"** _

"Will do," Harry replied, intrigued at these new developments. "Mischief managed."

* * *

_**23 July 1993  
An undisclosed location** _

"Michael Proudfoot" stood as still as he could and gasped for air as the bitterly cold liquid poured over him. After a good thirty seconds, the deluge stopped, and Lucius Malfoy pulled out a gold pocket watch and began timing.

"How long to I have to stand here and shiver," the drenched man said through chattering teeth.

"Until our little experiment is completed. That's what your being paid for, my good man. And frankly, your fees are far less than what I've spent this week on all the gallons of Thief's Downfall that are now splattering at your feet."

"Proudfoot" shook his head irritably and rubbed his hands over his soaking and chilled arms while the seconds ticked on into minutes.

* * *

_**24 July 1993  
Room 13 of the Leaky Cauldron** _

"Mr. X?" Harry asked tentatively. "I know it's not on our schedule for this week. But could I ask you a few questions about using Occlumency for parallel thought processing?"

* * *

_**25 July 1993  
Excerpt from an invitation** _

_I didn't know whether you'd gotten an invitation to Ron's Homecoming Party or not, nor whether you were interested in coming or not. Honestly, your relationship with Jim is so back-and-forth that I didn't want to assume. And also, you've made little secret of your feelings about Ron._ _However_ _, I did want to inform you of some details you might not be aware of. It turns out that the Office of Misuse of Muggle Artifacts falls under the jurisdiction of the DMLE. There was a memo that went around the other day clarifying that Daddy is not affected by that Ultimate Sanction nonsense. Which_ _also_ _means that none of the rest of us Weasleys are affected either!_

_With that in mind, I asked if we could invite Theo to the party, and Mum and Dad said okay, so if you come, you can actually spend time with Theo before school starts without it causing some big kerfluffle. Luna and Hermione will also be coming too! I hope you join us. It would be nice to see you and Jim hang out together since your_ _actual_ _birthday party is going to be a boring social affair. Well, unless someone goes on a killing spree again. Mum almost said we couldn't go to Jim's official party on the 31_ _st_ _after last year, but Percy, of all people, persuaded her that the security would surely be better this year, and besides, what are the odds of some hideous disaster happening two years in a row? But I'd still like to see you at a party for just friends instead of Ministry bootlickers._

_Hope to see you on the 30_ _th_ _._

_Ginny_

_P.S. – What's all this hippogriff dung I hear about how Slytherin girls aren't allowed to try out for Quidditch?! You know perfectly well that I can fly rings around Cassius Warrington!_

* * *

_**26 July 1993  
1:17 p.m.  
**_" __ **The Training Room"**

Harry dodged and parried as best he could, but he felt his time running short. If he was going to pull off the stunt he'd been planning since his previous training session, it was now or never. He threw himself to one side, summoning a nearby chair as he did. As soon as it was in range, he tapped it with his wand and transfigured it into a small stationary iron barricade that would give him a few seconds of relief before the transfiguration collapsed. He took a deep breath, centered himself, and cast the Doppleganger Defense Charm.

Moody had been mildly impressed when the Potter boy had actually summoned a chair and transfigured it so quickly. He could have destroyed the barrier at once, but he was curious as to what the boy would do next. Then, to his surprise and delight,  _two_  Harry Potters rolled out from behind the shield in opposite directions, each of which appeared to fire a Disarming Charm at one of his shoulders. If he guessed wrong as to which was the illusion, he would step right into the true spell. So he did neither. Instead, the grizzled auror took two quick steps forward to put himself into position before the twin spells got too close. Then, he simply turned to one side and exhaled as much as possible. Both beams passed on either side of him with just a few inches to spare.

And then, before Harry could reorient and fire again, Moody swept his arm in a wide arc and cried out: " _ **VENTUS MAXIMUS!**_ " A powerful blast of air sprayed out from his wand. The Harry on the right was unaffected, but the one on the left (the  _real_  Harry) was picked up off the ground by the gale-force wind and slammed against the rear wall. Instantly, the fake Harry winked out of existence. Moody ambled over to the stunned boy and cast a Renervate before summoning a healing potion.

"Congratulation, Potter. I'm actually very slightly impressed." Moody snickered softly as he handed off the potion.

Harry sat up slowly and took the potion gratefully. He had actually hit the wall very hard and felt rather sore. "I don't know why. It didn't work any better than anything else I've tried so far."

"Nonsense!" Moody exclaimed. "Combat transfiguration!? Followed by a clever use of the Doppelganger Defense?! Also, I've been politely ignoring the fact that you're an Occlumens so that I can plead ignorance if it ever comes up in a court case or something, but for you to cast an Expelliarmus yourself while directing your doppelganger to mimic your motions? Parallel thought tracks at your age? Not too shabby!"

"Thanks," Harry said sincerely, as he had not won much in the way of praise from the older man. "That thing you did – stepping in between two spells to give yourself more room to dodge. Is that a common tactic or something you thought of on the fly?"

"Bit of both," Moody replied as he offered a hand to help the boy up. It was the first time he had ever bothered to do so, a fact Harry noticed and appreciated. "It's a common dueling tactic to favor spell sequences that force your opponent into moving in the direction you want as a prelude to some attack. Usually, if your opponent is offering you the choice of two options, like  _move where I tell you to or get hit with a spell_ , your best bet is to look for a third alternative. Remember that, lad. There's almost always a third way if you look hard enough."

Harry was silent for a moment, and Moody noticed. "Something on your mind, Potter?"

"I'm improving. I know it. But ... at this rate, how long do you think it will be before I stand a chance against you?"

Moody's remaining eyebrow rose in surprise. "And why, Potter, do you think you might need to actually fight me for real? Or for that matter, anyone close to my level?"

Harry looked away thoughtfully before turning back to meet his tutor's gaze. "In the last two years, I've faced Voldemort twice."

Moody was silent for a moment. Then, he gave a look that was strangely satisfied. "So he  _does_  still live. I  _knew_  it." Then, he considered the boy more seriously. "Congratulations, Potter. You're in rarified company to have faced Voldie even once and survived, let alone twice."

"He's only at a fraction of his power. Basically a jumped-up ghost. And to be honest, the first time he wasn't interested in killing me and the second time he wasn't in a position to. But ... I'm the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived, and I  _don't_  have his weird magical Voldemort killing powers. If this is going to keep happening ... I need to be better."

By now, the chair Harry transfigured earlier had returned to its true shape. Moody sat down in it while summoning another chair for the boy.

" _Better_ probably won't be good enough, kid. I know of exactly ten people who went wand-to-wand with Voldemort during the last war and who managed to last more than three seconds. Of those, four managed to escape within eight seconds, and three continued fighting for more than ten seconds before dying horribly. The eighth was Albus Dumbledore, the only man to ever force Voldemort to withdraw. The ninth was your dad who lasted twelve whole seconds but was  _about_  to die horribly when Albus showed up to save him in the proverbial nick. And the last one was me, and I ... well, I was a special case."

For a brief instant, Moody's face looked visibly haunted, so much so that Harry didn't ask for any details. Then, the man shook off his melancholy.

"I know those exact figures because I have memories of all those encounters, most of which I played for auror recruits so they knew what they'd be getting into. And before you ask, no, I'm not playing them for you!"

"But  _Moody..._ "

"Don't  _whine_ , Potter! It's unbecoming of a Slytherin!" That remark actually shocked Harry into silence. Then, he thought about the matter for a few seconds before Moody interrupted him. "And stop trying to figure out how to manipulate me with Legilimency!"

Harry's mouth opened, but only a brief choking sound came out. Moody rolled his one good eye, causing the fake one to whirl madly.

"Surely you didn't think I'd accept James Potter's mysterious Muggle-raised Slytherin son as a student without a thorough background check! Anyway, don't worry about it. It's another of your secrets that I'm happy to keep."

The boy looked frustrated and overwhelmed, and Moody's face softened. "Harry, I won't teach you to  _duel_  Voldemort because I've taught too many good wizards and witches how to die in the attempt. But I  _will_  teach you how to  _fight_ him which is  _not_  the same thing.  _Fighting_  Voldemort means lasting long enough to escape or, failing that, to sacrifice yourself in exchange for something you value more than your own life."

Moody held out his hand as if he expected something to come flying into it. And sure enough, something did: a small well-worn paperback book that flew through one of the doors in response to his wandless summoning. He caught it easily and handed it off to Harry.

It was  _The Art of War_  by Sun Tzu.

"This is a Muggle book!" Harry exclaimed in surprise.

"No, this is  _THE_ Muggle book. The single best thing that Muggle civilization has ever produced ... with the possible exception of Raquel Welch, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, take that home. Read it. Commit it to memory. But if you absorb nothing else, remember this: " _The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting._ "

Harry nodded at the cryptic yet seemingly profound quotation and put the book away with his things. Moody watched him thoughtfully.

"I'll tell you what, though," he said with a touch of smugness. "Here's a little motivation for your continued studies. If you can disarm me  _at any point in the next year_ , I  _will_  let you see all those memories of Voldie. All except for my own personal ones."

"At any point?" Harry said suspiciously.

"Yep," Moody replied with his crinkled leering half-smile. "Now then, enough dueling for today. Time for Potions." He turned his back on Harry and headed towards the door to the potions lab, stashing his wand as he went. Harry hesitated for a second and then aimed his wand at the man's back in a flurry of motion.

" _ **EXPELLIARMUS!**_ "

A bolt of red shot towards Moody's back, but before he could strike, the man casually raised his right hand up into the air and wiggled his fingers without even bothering to turn around. The Disarming Charm struck an invisible shield and dissipated without effect.

"OH COME ON!" Harry shouted in frustration. "Are you just  _immune_  to Disarming Charms?! And what's with all this ..." he waved his hand in the air in imitation of what Moody had done "... finger-wavy bullshit."

"Language, Potter!" Moody chastised as he looked back over his shoulder to his pupil. "And I simply made use of the Anti-Disarming Counter-Jinx."

"The ... What?!"

"The Anti-Disarming Counter-Jinx," he repeated slowly as if talking to a child.

Harry took a deep breath to calm himself. "And why have I never before heard of such a spell?"

"Because practically  _no one_  has heard of such a spell. The incantation takes longer to say than  _Expelliarmus_ , and the wand movement is more complicated than that of the Disarming Spell. Consequently, it's nearly impossible to actually use it for its intended purpose, so most wizards never even bother with it."

"Then how do  _you_  use it to block Disarming Charms?"

"Easy. I learned it, practiced it for the better part of a year with a friend who would cast  _really slow_  Disarming Charms at me until I could use it reliably, and then spent another two years mastering it as a wordless, wandless spell. And then,  _voila_ , I can counter an Expelliarmus with just a wave of my hand."

"In other words, it's  _impossible_  for me to disarm you!" Harry said indignantly.

"Nundu Pucky! I've never used it in a duel with you so far, and I never will. It's only for when you try to get sneaky outside of duels like just now." Moody thought for a second. "Or possibly if you get sneaky  _during_ a duel. Or if the mood just strikes me."

Harry narrowed his eyes at the ex-auror. "How is it  _possible_  you weren't a Slytherin?!"

* * *

__**29 July 1993  
The Longbottom Kitchen  
6:00 a.m.**

The boy stared with disapproval at the plate of confectionaries he and his sous-elf had produced. The petit fours looked okay, but there was a distinct lack of shine to the macarons. He turned to Hoskins.

"Thoughts?" he asked.

"Master Harry should do something about the Dobby elf," Hoskins replied easily.

"No, I mean about the macarons ... wait, what? What's wrong with Dobby?"

"The Dobby elf remains traumatized and damaged by his recent experiences. He serves Master Harry ... adequately. But as Master Harry is but a guest here – though an  _honored_  one to be sure – the Dobby elf lacks sufficient work to fully satisfy him. Also, Hoskins suspects that one or more of the Dobby elf's prior owners made sport of his suffering, and so he has trained himself to suffer in order to please those with power over him. This explains the Dobby elf's tendency to constantly bang his head on things when he thinks others are unhappy with him and also his habit of bursting into tears at little to no provocation.  _Histrionic_ , Hoskins would describe it as."

Harry actually frowned at that. "Why do you call him 'the Dobby elf' instead of just 'Dobby?'"

"Because respectfully, Master Harry, he is  _not_  Dobby. He is just an elf who answers to the name of Dobby. At present, he does not understand your needs nor does he understand the nature of the master-servant relationship you desire. Accordingly, he has no sense of self. No sense of ... Dobby-ness."

The boy nodded slowly at that. Privately, he thought he would never understand house elves if he lived to be 100. "And what would you recommend I do to help him?"

Hoskins shrugged. "Hoskins is a Longbottom elf, sir, and Hoskins suspects that Master Harry would not wish for the Dobby elf to serve you as Hoskins and Lumpen serve the Longbottoms. The traditions of the Longbottom family elves are ... particular."

"Uh-huh. Are there other ... traditions that you think might suit me better?"

The diminutive creature stopped to think for a few seconds. "Hoskins knows that the wizards in some lands treat their elves like true family members – respected and doting second parents.  _Little Father_ or  _Little Mother_ they are called in whatever local language is spoken. Hoskins would be profoundly embarrassed to be addressed in such a fashion, but perhaps the Dobby elf would respond better. Hoskins also knows that some house elves hide themselves completely, performing their tasks with the utmost discretion and manifesting bodily only when called to account by their masters for some misstep or summoned for some specific and unusual instruction. The Hogwarts house elves act as such and outside of the kitchens are seldom seen by others unless summoned by a teacher."

"How do you know so much about the Hogwarts elves, Hoskins?" Harry asked in surprise.

"All house elves know what they need to know about other house elves, though we cannot speak of secret things. As you would not wish the Dobby elf to reveal your secrets, so are we all forbidden to speak too freely of what we learn from our brethren." Hoskins stopped to think for a moment, and then his face brightened. "If Master Harry wishes to know more of the Hogwarts elves, he should consult with Tweak!"

"... Tweak? Who is ... Tweak?"

"Tweak is being the Hogwarts house elf who oversees the needs of the Slytherin dungeons, Master Harry. While Tweak seldom appears before students, Hoskins is sure he would speak to a Slytherin of sufficient stature and cunning such as your esteemed self!"

Harry absorbed that. "Okay, I guess. I'll look into that. Any other suggestions?"

Hoskins rubbed his chin. "Perhaps Master Harry might speak to his friends who are Pureblooded and who have house elves of their own. Perhaps there are some whose house elves serve their masters in ways you might find pleasing?"

Harry frowned again. Honestly, he couldn't think of any way that house elf service could be  _pleasing_  to him. Privately, he thought his own upbringing had been far too close to that of an "abused house elf" for him to ever be fully comfortable with having servants of his own. But he had bought Dobby fair and square, and when he'd told the story to Blaise Zabini, the boy had responded with an old Chinese proverb: " _When you save someone's life, you are responsible for them forever._ "

" _Hey, maybe I should write to Blaise,_ " Harry thought to himself. " _I'm sure he'll have some ideas about 'proper house elf training.' Granted, they might be horrible ideas, but they'll give me a starting place, I bet._ " Then, he turned his attention back to the elf standing before him.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Hoskins. I will definitely attend to ... the Dobby elf as soon as I can."

"Hoskins is being most gratified, Master Harry."

Harry turned his attention back to the plate. "And the macarons?"

"Hoskins thinks we should be sifting the almond flour more finely and perhaps leave them to set longer before baking."

The boy nodded at that sage advice. "Okay, let's start again."

* * *

__**30 July 1993  
The Weasley Burrow  
11:00 a.m.**

On the morning of Ron and Jim's welcoming party, Harry stepped through the Weasley Floo to find the party was still a work in progress. The other guests were supposed to arrive around noon, and yet Mrs. Weasley was still setting things up and was currently busy levitating a "WELCOME HOME, RON & JIM" banner into position. As soon as she noticed Harry, however, she left the banner partially attached and came over to give him a hug.

Harry forced himself to relax. He would probably never be a "hugger" or even someone who enjoyed any form of close physical contact, but he and Molly Weasley did seem to have a mutual affection. Besides, as far as Harry had been able to discern in the last two years, it was generally considered somewhat ... unnatural to stiffen when someone hugged you, to physically recoil from the simplest forms of human affection and kindness. To most people, it suggested that there might be something  _wrong_  about one's upbringing. And so Harry had taken that part of himself – the part that flinched at someone's touch because hugs were for Dudley and all Harry got were slaps – and filed it away in a book that sat on a dusty shelf in the Prince's Lair that only existed in the deepest recesses of his mind.

"It's good to see you too, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said with a warm smile so convincing that it fooled even Harry himself. "And I have something for you!"

From the bag he'd brought, Harry produced a small box containing a dozen multi-colored (and shiny!) macarons. After considerable negotiations, Harry had persuaded Hoskins that it was no slight to the Longbottom house elves for Harry to personally cook foodstuffs that would be given as gifts to others so long as the recipients did not live at Longbottom manor. Preparing food in such a way made it a " _gift from the heart_ " which was an idea that for some reason appealed to the house elves.

"Oh you shouldn't have!" Molly said, though her expression indicated no reluctance about accepting the gift. According to Ginny, Molly Weasley had a weakness for macarons.

Moments later, the rest of the Weasley family came to welcome Harry as well. He made a point of congratulating George on becoming a Fifth Year prefect which made Molly and Arthur beam with pride, Percy smirk (with what Harry intuited was a rather odd sense of satisfaction), and Fred actually glare for several seconds before he got hold of himself.

" _Oh joy,_ " Harry thought sourly. " _More Weasley family drama this year, I'll bet. Oh well, just so long as Fred avoids any cursed diaries, it's not my problem._ "

Harry also got to meet the two older brothers he'd heard so much about. Bill Weasley practically looked like a film star, with rugged but dashing good looks, long hair in a ponytail that actually made Harry jealous despite its vivid ginger color, and an earring fashioned from some creature's fang. Charlie Weasley was short, stocky, and easily the most well-muscled of his whole family. And apparently, he was also jealous of Bill's long hair – he'd overheard the boy complaining that he'd agreed to let Molly give him "a light trim" that somehow turned into a near buzz cut. Privately, Harry agreed with Molly, as he thought Charlie's facial structure was totally wrong for long hair. He needed something short and spiky, perhaps with a neat goatee. Besides, the man spent most of his time around fire-breathing dragons, and surely long hair would be a safety hazard. Harry resolved to look into hair-care products that were non-flammable as possible future gift ideas.

Over the course of the next half-hour, the rest of the guests arrived: Seamus, Dean, the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Luna Lovegood. Hermione. Theo. A few others that Harry didn't know.

And James Potter.

As everyone else made small talk while waiting for Jim and Ron's arrival back from the Far East, Harry's (still somewhat estranged) father moved towards him with what the man probably thought was "casualness." Harry had known that an encounter with James was very likely, and while it wasn't something he was looking forward to, it was a necessary evil. And so Harry steeled himself and then donned his "Great to see you!" smile. He'd been practicing it lately and had gotten quite good with it. It helped that they were on neutral territory and so Harry could talk to James amiably without any risk of undermining his legal position.

Or revealing anything of his plans.

"Hello, Harry. How has your summer been?"

"Oh, pretty good. Nearly have all my homework done." " _Actually, I'm still on target to take some of my OWLS next spring,"_  he thought to himself. " _How have you been?_ "

"Good, good," James said with a nod. "Listen, I've had a lot of time to think about how things ended between us last month. When you came to speak with me about your friend, Theo."

"Oh?" Harry said without a hint of coldness.

James looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry. I should have been more sensitive to your concerns and to your friend's plight. Since then, I have looked into matters and, well, I don't see any  _legal_  way to overturn the Ultimate Sanction or to interfere with ... that business between Tiberius Nott and the Wilkes girl. But I promise I'll keep trying on both fronts. I  _have_  been able to use my position to expand the number of law enforcement positions that are immune to the Sanction. That's why Arthur and his family aren't affected. And ... if you and Jim want to maintain a friendship with Theo, I'm fine with it. It may cause some problems at work, but I can handle it. Just promise me you'll be careful."

"I will ... Dad. I promise."

The conversation lasted for several more minutes, during which Harry intimated that he'd spent most of the summer lounging around the Longbottom pool rather than pursuing Occlumency, Legilimency, and dueling lessons with Mad-Eye Moody. " _After all,_ " thought Harry. " _It's not like it's any of your business._ "

Then, Harry checked himself internally and was surprised at how much anger and bitterness towards James was still bubbling away in his subconscious. If he weren't an Occlumens, he'd probably be throwing sarcastic insults by now. After a few seconds analyzing how his emotional reactions to his father were affecting his reasoning abilities, Harry sighed loudly (again, internally). Sometime soon, he needed to sit down and sort out his internal feelings about his father. Did he really want revenge for James's abandonment of him? Or would he be satisfied if he attained a position of personal security sufficient to ensure that James (and Lily and everyone else who'd played a role in the Privet Drive disaster) would never be able to hurt him again? After all, another of Blaise's Chinese proverbs was: " _If you seek revenge, dig two graves. One for yourself._ " Then again, if he didn't really want revenge against James Potter, why did he go along with Regulus's current scheme?

All of those thoughts twisted and turned in the secondary layers of Harry's thought processes, but none of them showed on the surface level as Harry and James moved on to a perfectly civil conversation about Slytherin House's prospects in the coming Quidditch season. Harry conceded that it was a rebuilding year for Slytherin. They had lost Drake and Marcus (James actually did a double-take at the name "Drake"), and there was speculation that Derrick and Bole might not return to the team. After their near expulsion the previous term followed by poor end-of-term grades and even worse OWLS, their respective parents had been furious and were considering forcing them to drop all extracurricular activities. It was entirely possible that Harry, Pucey, and Bletchley would be the only returning members, whereas the Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs both would have their entire teams returning intact.

"Oh," James said suddenly. "That reminds me. Since we're doing family gifts today instead of at Jim's official party tomorrow, this is for you." He produced a small untitled book and handed it over to Harry. The boy opened it up and was surprised to see that it was an entire book of hand-drawn Quidditch Chaser plays. It also came with a sizeable gift certificate to Quality Quidditch Supplies.

"The gift certificate is for whatever you need, but I also wanted to give you something more personal. That's my old playbook from when I was a Gryffindor Chaser. I thought you might find some use for it."

Harry studied the book for a few seconds. "This isn't a magical copy. It's the original." He looked up at James. "Your not giving Jim a copy of this?"

James shrugged. "He's a Seeker. It wouldn't be of much value to him. And the Gryffindor Chasers use a Holyhead-style zone offense. I was always more a fan of the lateral transfer offense that Puddlemere and Portreeve use. Which, ironically, is what you and the other Slytherin Chasers used last year."

The man seemed almost embarrassed to admit that the Slytherin Chasers under Marcus and Harry's influence had become closer to his ideal of what Chasing should be than his own House. This was news to Harry since he hadn't known anything about James's feelings on the matter and, for that matter, didn't actually know enough about formal Quidditch play-making to realize that he was basically reinventing a well-established approach. At the time, he'd just assumed he was applying Slytherin cunning to the rules of the game.

Harry found himself genuinely surprised and slightly touched by the gift. The previous year, James and Lily had given Harry and Jim identical gifts – absurdly overpriced Firebolts that showed the Potters had money to burn but no sense of personal connection to their sons. This, however, was actually thoughtful. Instinctively, Harry plastered a smile of genuine gratitude onto his face while brutally suppressing his actual feelings down into the lower levels of his mind until he could meditate and decide how he  _really_  felt. To his surprise, he now suspected a touch of guilt might be a part of the mixture.

Happily, before Harry had to contemplate that possibility any further, there was a whoosh of flame from the fireplace, and the guests of honor stepped through – Jim, Ron, and Lily had arrived, and both boys were suitably delighted by the surprise party. James excused himself and made his way over to the Floo, where he gave a hug to Jim and tussled the boy's hair before giving his embarrassed wife a kiss. That is, she seemed embarrassed to be kissed like that in front of a crowd, but she obviously didn't mind getting kissed by her husband at all, and Harry remembered that they had been apart for a full month. The boy idly wondered whether they were still sleeping in separate rooms at Potter Manor.

* * *

Jim gave Harry a big affectionate hug, oblivious to the psychic hoops his older brother had to go through in order accept it.

"How was the trip home?" Harry inquired. "You said the trip over made you sick for two days."

"I'm fine. They taught Ron and me a meditation kata that we could practice before taking the portkey from Shamballa to London that would help with portkey sickness."

Harry laughed. "You and your meditation."

"You should try it," Jim said with a smile. "You might learn a thing or two. Anyway, here, I got you something." He produced a wrapped package from the bag he brought through the Floo. "Though you probably will want to open it at home."

"Likewise," Harry replied with a smile as he handed his twin a slightly larger and more skillfully-wrapped package. "Though probably for different reasons."

* * *

"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Ron. " _George_  is a  _prefect?!_  How did that happen?!"

"No idea," Fred said coolly. "But I guess me and Lee might have an opening for the position of  _partner in crime_  if you're interested."

"Um," Ron replied somewhat nervously.

* * *

"Luna?" Hermione said with some concern. "Are you feeling alright? You look like you haven't been sleeping well."

Luna looked up at her friend and house-mate in surprise. "Really? Funny you should say that. Because ... I have been having some odd dreams lately."

"Oh? Tell me more."

* * *

"As near as I can tell," Harry said to Ginny, "there's no formal or even informal rule in Slytherin against female Quidditch players. Girls just don't try out. It's not even a sexist exclusionary thing on the part of the guys. Marcus told me once he'd encouraged some of the girls who were good fliers to try out, but they wouldn't. I think it actually has more to do with the more influential Pureblooded girls thinking that it's ...  _unSlytherin_  or something for girls to try to intrude on what is perceived as a guy-thing."

"Whatever, Harry. You know I don't care about impressing the Purebloods. So can I try out for Seeker this year?"

"I don't see why not. Just be ready for more than the usual sniping from the upper-years about you being unladylike or what-have-you."

Ginny snorted. "Please. I'm the Slytherin Weasley! How much worse could  _that_  get!"

* * *

"Theo, right?" said Jim Potter as if he and Theo had not been Sorted the same year and had spoken on several occasions. Then again, Theo thought this might possibly be the very first time that he and Jim had spoken one-on-one without Harry as intermediary.

"Yep, that's me. And you're Jim, right?" Theo replied smoothly, as if he weren't talking to the most famous thirteen-year-old in the wizarding world.

"Um, yeah." Jim paused as if uncertain how to proceed. "So how are you holding up? I know you had ... some bad stuff happen to you."

Theo almost laughed out loud at Jim's gift for understatement, but he suppressed the impulse. The Boy-Who-Lived was, for some baffling reason, trying to be nice. Theo thought it would be churlish to mock the other boy's efforts.

"You could say that. I'm Theo No-Name now. Which is better in some ways than being called Theo Nott, but I know it will cause problems when we get back to school. Whatever comes, I'll handle it as best I can."

Jim looked around conspiratorially and then moved closer. "Are you worried about getting bullied in Slytherin House?" he asked.

"Why do you ask?" Theo said suspiciously.

Jim pursed his lips for a second. "I've been thinking of starting a student-run self-defense group, mainly for Muggleborns and Muggle-raised students who get picked on by older Purebloods. I'd like for you to join us. It's all people who won't be affected by the curse you're under, so you'd be safe with us."

Theo crooked an eyebrow. "Does this have something to do with Hermione's SPAM thing?"

Jim blinked twice. "Her what?!"

* * *

"I know you pride yourself on  _Slytherin subtlety_ , Harry," said Hermione firmly, "but Theo is my friend too, and I insist on supporting him. What's more, I think it's appalling in general that our entire society can be so casually influenced by a single dark wizard's malicious curse, and I want to start a group to raise public awareness against it."

"This is that SPAM thing that Blaise wrote me about, isn't it?" Harry asked with some amusement.

"We are  _not_  calling it SPAM!" she hissed before looking around in embarrassment to see if anyone heard her outburst. Then, she continued more quietly. "I  _was_  thinking about calling it the Society for the Prevention of Abusive Magic, but I realized at once what a silly acronym that would make. I haven't decided on a new name yet. I suppose we'll just wait until the first meeting and ask for suggestions."

"If Blaise is involved, don't be surprised if SPAM is one of them."

She sighed almost dejectedly. "Don't worry. I won't be."

* * *

"I'm glad your back, Lily-flower" James said affectionately. "I've missed you a lot."

"I sent you an owl-post every other day," Lily said with a smile.

"It's not the same," he said with a sulk before taking a sip of Molly's lemonade.

"No, I suppose it's not. For starters, there are some things we should probably to talk about that you wouldn't want to see written down..." she leaned in to whisper "...  _Prongs_."

It took several seconds for James to clear his throat after almost choking on his lemonade.

* * *

"Wait a minute!" Bill exclaimed in excitement. "You figured out how to convert explosive runes into a ward breaker?!"

"Well, I  _think_  so," George replied. "It's not like I could test it out, but I'm pretty sure it would work."

Then, George actually got a bit nervous at the look his eldest brother was giving him. He was used to either the Amused Twinkling Eyes or the Grimace of Disappointment. Bill's current look was something new, something ... calculating.

"Tell me, George. Have you ever considered a career in curse-breaking?"

* * *

_**Longbottom Manor  
5:30 p.m.** _

An hour after the party had broken up, Harry was back in his room where he opened Jim's gift. It was an autographed copy of Gupta Baskar's book  _ **The Serpent's Tongue**_  about the known history, theorized origins, and suspected advanced properties of Parseltongue. There was a note inside.

" _Harry – You told me repeatedly that you're not a Parselmouth, and I accept that. But if nothing else, I think the information in this book would be good for an enterprising Slytherin like you to know. Who knows. Maybe you'll try to learn Parseltongue the hard way. And it is a very hard way, apparently, but if anyone I know could do it, it would be you. Happy Birthday!_

_PS – I promise I'll do whatever I can to help your friend Theo."_

Harry found himself strangely touched by his brother's sincerity, and he now wished he'd put more thought into the gifts he'd gotten Jim. He hoped his brother appreciated them and the spirit in which they'd been given.

* * *

_**Meanwhile at Potter Manor...** _

Once back at Potter Manor and in his own room at last, Jim Potter opened Harry's gift box. There were three items within – an expensive leather wand holster, a book, and what appeared to be a Muggle T-shirt – along with a note.

" _Jim – I have no idea why you've resisted using a wand holster up until now. I have recently been advised that it's actually dangerous to carry your wand around in a back pocket as I've seen you do on occasion. Apparently, it's a good way to blow one of your buttocks off! The book is_ _ **Seeker Tips and Tricks**_   _by Benjy Williams. I know you're a fan of Puddlemere and said once he was your favorite Seeker, so I thought it might give you some inspiration. Finally, the shirt's just something to keep you humble. Merlin knows we Potters need as much of that as we can get. Happy Birthday, Little Brother!"_

Intrigued, Jim set the wand holster and book aside before pulling out the T-shirt. He held it up so that he could get a good look at it. Six months earlier he'd have probably ripped it to shreds in a fury, but now he just laughed in delight. The shirt was in Gryffindor crimson with letters of Gryffindor gold that proudly identified the wearer as ...

**SUPREME GIT OF THE UNIVERSE**

Jim laid back on his bed still smiling. He suspected that this might become his new favorite shirt.

* * *

_**11:00 p.m.  
Thurso, Scotland** _

The township of Thurso had the distinction of being the northernmost town in the British Isles. And among wizards, it also held the distinction as the only Muggle town so far north that it was slightly outside the network of ley lines, wards, and detection spells used by the Ministry of Magic to guard the nation against magical invasion. A small town, its population was listed at 7,598 as of this morning. By noon, the population had risen by eight. By that evening, it had dropped by more than twenty. And now, with a pop of apparation, it had risen by one more.

"And what's all this then?" Peter Pettigrew said irritably as he took in the carnage. He was expected at Jim's party early the next morning and was quite put out at the prospect of being up all night cleaning up after a pack of werewolves. "What part of  _discreet insertion_  did I fail to make clear?"

Seven of the eight blood-soaked werewolves standing before him growled menacingly in response to Pettigrew's sarcasm, but the eighth was more familiar with the wizard's humor. Not to mention how dangerous he could be if crossed.

"It was a long trip, Pettigrew. My pack was hungry, so we fed. It matters not. I'm a wizard as well as a werewolf, as are two of my pack. I can conceal our ... indiscretions."

"Conceal? Almost two-dozen violently mutilated and partially-eaten Muggle corpses are  _indiscretions_  for you to  _conceal_?"

"Houses burn, Pettigrew, whether from gasoline or an Incendio. What Muggle would know the difference? What wizard would care?"

Peter shook his head. "Walk with me, Greyback." And the animagus turned and stalked out into the nearby woods with the pack alpha following behind.

A moment later, Peter finally spoke. "There's been a change of plans."

"A change? Bit late to introduce changes, isn't it?"

"You and I are both agents of change, Bob. You'll adapt."

"Don't call me Bob," the werewolf snapped. "I am Fenrir Greyback."

"You're Bob Greyson, the Muggleborn son of a reputable though now-deceased Muggle bank officer from Leeds. And a Ravenclaw to boot!"

"That was before," Fenrir replied. "Bob Greyson was my  _human_  name."

Peter sniffed almost disdainfully at the werewolf's pretensions. "Whatever. Anyway, we're putting the Potter operation on hold. Something else has taken priority."

"What?"

"Rescuing a damsel in distress."

Fenrir stopped suddenly and then Peter turned to face him.

"You're joking," Fenrir said dubiously. "Who?"

"The Toymaker's Daughter. And perhaps the future mother of the Toymaker's Heir. As a female, she cannot inherit the Wilkes lordship, but it  _will_  pass to any wizarding offspring she births, along with everything else that the Toymaker hid away for a rainy day. Which is why that wretched old bore Tiberius Nott has wiggled his way into a marriage contract with a witch fifty years his junior."

"Uh-huh. And we're rescuing her from that dastardly fate?"

"Of course. We have plans in place for the Dark Lord's resurrection. I'll be damned if I let Tiberius Nott just show up at the last minute with a fortune in galleons and dark artifacts and weasel himself back into our master's good graces."

"Right. And you want to, what, marry the child yourself?"

"Certainly not!" Pettigrew said as if genuinely offended. "I plan to extract her still beating heart with an enchanted dagger and incorporate it into a potion that, once consumed, will cause the Wilkes biomagical wards to recognize me as the new Lord Wilkes for a period of 48 hours. More than enough time to transfer the contents of the Wilkes vaults to my own."

Fenrir stared at Pettigrew for several seconds before shrugging. "Still better than what Nott has planned, I suppose."

"Indeed. Now here's what we're going to do."

* * *

__**31 July 1993  
Potter Manor  
The Boy-Who-Lived's Birthday Gala**

Peter covered his mouth with his hand to conceal a deep yawn and then shook his head. Next to him, James Potter noticed.

"Late night?" James said with some concern.

Peter nodded. "I had some unexpected work travel on behalf of one of my other clients. Didn't get back to the apartment until after two."

"The night before Jim's birthday?" James exclaimed.

"Like I said ... unexpected."

James smiled and shook his head. "Well, was it at least profitable?"

Peter grinned at his oldest friend. "That's yet to be seen, but I'm quite bullish on my prospects."

James laughed and clapped his closest friend on the shoulder as the two surveyed the Potter grounds together. There was a noticeable increase in the number of aurors present at the gala this year, as well as improvements to the wards and security measures, and James seemed confident that there would be no repeat of last year's carnage. Peter agreed and said he expected the gala to be as boring as it normally was.

Nevertheless, both James and Peter kept a careful eye on the Potter Twins, though for different reasons. For James, it was purely out of parental interest tinged with regret for past mistakes. For Peter, it was with a godfather's pride in Jim combined with a barely concealed disdain for Harry. Disdain and suspicion.

" _Ten years in a boot cupboard_ ," Peter thought.  _"By rights, the little brat should be an emotional cripple if not a borderline psychotic. And yet there he is hobnobbing with Dumbledore and Fudge like he was a born politician. What_ _is_ _your secret, Harry Potter?"_

And indeed, the object of the two Marauders' attentions was at that moment speaking conversationally to several prominent politicians with the poise and charm of someone many years his senior.

"Ah, Harry, m'boy," Fudge said. "I want you to meet someone. Allow me to introduce Pius Thicknesse. He's a highly-decorated auror who works with your father. It hasn't been made official yet, but I'll be appointing him to Senior status to fill the hole left by James' promotion in just a few days."

Harry smiled at Thicknesse and made a note to look into his background later. "Congratulations, Auror Thicknesse."

The man gave a polite nod but otherwise revealed nothing of his response to the Minister's announcement. "Thank you, Mr. Potter. I look forward to continuing my work alongside your father. He's a fine man."

Harry gave a nod of acknowledgment himself while mentally docking Thicknesse several points for having a positive opinion of James. Then, he turned his attention to Dumbledore.

"Gentlemen, I hope you will excuse me, but if you don't mind, I would like to borrow the Headmaster for a few minutes. Some minor school-related matters."

Fudge and Thicknesse both chuckled jovially and headed back towards the refreshments table, leaving Harry and Dumbledore alone.

"And what might I do for you, Harry?"

"I was hoping to talk about Theo No-Name, sir."

"Ah, yes. Most regrettable circumstances that."

"I've been told that the Hogwarts professors are not affected by the Sanction. Is that true?"

"It is indeed, Harry. The faculty are not directly affected, and I have already sent out memos to all of the faculty to be especially vigilant for abuse targeted towards the young man. Alas, those students most likely to be particularly affected by the Sanction are also most likely to be in your house. Your Seventh Year prefects will not be directly affected, but the Sixth and Fifth Year prefects will be to some extent due to their family connections. And even those Slytherins not directly affected will be subject to significant peer pressure, I fear."

Harry nodded. "Any advice?"

"Well, my usual recommendation for any situation is ' _do what is right, not what is easy_ ,' but I have noticed that most Slytherins find that an unhelpful suggestion. Though I was a Gryffindor myself, I am well aware of what a social minefield your House has always been and that it is even moreso since the end of the last war. You have made remarkable strides in bending Slytherin House away from its traditional associations with blood purism and support for Voldemort in particular. I can only encourage you to persevere in your endeavors even though I fear I can offer little practical assistance."

The boy absorbed that. It was less than he was hoping for, but then perhaps it had been naive of him to think that Dumbledore could solve a problem as intractable as this. Then again ...

"What about your position as Chief Warlock, sir? Surely there is some way to legislatively undo the Ultimate Sanction."

"Alas, Harry, the wheels of government turn slowly and with imprecision. The Inheritance Act was passed by the Wizengamot with an 80% affirmative vote. Only a 75% affirmative vote is needed to pass laws which can magically affect Wizengamot members and those bound to them by oath or blood, and it would require an equal percentage or greater to repeal any part of that law. Since Lord Nott's faction presently commands at least 30% of the outstanding votes, I cannot see how a three-quarters voting bloc can be obtained. Indeed, as bad as things are for young Theo, they could have been far worse."

"How so?"

"Well, as I said, the Inheritance Act was passed by a margin of 80% to 20%. Had it been  _unanimous_ , the law's provisions, including the Ultimate Sanction, would have held force over every wizard or witch in Britain automatically upon selecting a wand."

Harry's eyes widened in shock. "Has that ever happened?"

"Not since the founding of the Wizengamot itself since, naturally, the passage of the Wizengamot Charter in any form would have required unanimity. The requirement of wand usage rather than other foci as a mark of citizenship has been part of Magical Britain since its foundation. As for the Inheritance Act, it was the product of a time of extreme panic, since the nation had only just narrowly evaded conquest by a hostile foreign power that would likely have initiated a bloody purge against any British wizards or witches judged a threat to the conquering regime. It is, sadly, not uncommon for governments to pass foolish laws in response to crises. Much more recently, we saw similar shortsighted legislation during the last Wizarding War with the passage of the Death Eater Laws. Of course, those laws did not command anything close to a 75% majority, and so they were not backed by force of magic. But they did significantly infringe upon the rights guaranteed to all wizards and witches under the ICW Charter. Had the Death Eater Laws not been designed to sunset automatically thirty days after the confirmed destruction of Voldemort, Magical Britain's ICW status would have been jeopardized with potentially disastrous results for the nation and the world."

Harry looked around to make certain they were not being overheard. "Is that why the government's position has always been that You-Know-Who is really dead even we know better?" he asked quietly.

Dumbledore nodded and then spoke just as quietly. "There was enough physical evidence left at Godric's Hollow to confirm that Voldemort's physical form was destroyed. Had the government attempted to keep the Death Eater Laws in place merely upon unconfirmed suspicion that Voldemort lingered as a spirit, the ICW would have almost certainly declared Magical Britain as being in violation of Charter provisions, which would have led to international sanctions or worse at a time when we were desperate to rebuild."

Harry considered that. " _A thirty-day window to handle every Death Eater-related legal matter. Suddenly it's less surprising that animals like Nott slipped through the cracks._ "

"Augusta might be someone to talk to about that," Dumbledore continued. "She took a rather strong interest in the Death Eater Laws after what happened to her son and daughter-in-law at the hands of the Lestranges." He looked around. "Are she and Neville here today? I had wanted to say hello to them both."

"Unfortunately," Harry replied smoothly. "Neville is abroad. Lady Augusta was going to come, but she was feeling a bit under the weather and decided to stay home."

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"No, just a summer cold." And as casually as possible, Harry avoided eye contact with his Headmaster.

* * *

_**Longbottom Manor  
6:45 p.m.** _

Hours later, an exhausted Harry stepped through the Floo into the Longbottom parlor. He dusted off his clothes as much as possible and then handed his jacket off to Dobby for cleaning. Then, the boy made his way through the house to the meeting room on the far side of the manor. Lady Augusta, who did not look the least bit sick, was sitting at the table playing solitaire.

"Any news?" Harry asked.

"No," she replied without looking up. "But it's quite early yet."

Harry glanced over at the clock on the wall. It didn't feel " _early_ " after the day he'd had.

"By the way, Dumbledore sends his regards."

"Mmm," she replied, still without looking up.

The two waited together in silence.

* * *

_**Potter Manor  
11:55 p.m.** _

James Potter had just changed for bed after an exhausting day when one of the Potter house elves came for him saying that there was an urgent Floo call from the Auror's Office. Grumbling, he threw on his robe and jammed his wand into his pocket before heading swiftly to the main fireplace. On the other end was Kingsley Shacklebolt, looking as grim as James had ever seen him.

"Shack, what's going on?" he asked.

"Permission to come through the Floo, sir?" the auror replied while ignoring his boss's question.

"Granted," James said. Then, he stepped back in surprise when Shacklebolt came through accompanied by three other aurors. All of them had their wands out.

"What is this?" James asked again and with a hint of anger.

"Chief Auror Potter," Shacklebolt began, his face a mask of professionalism, "I must respectfully ask that you turn over your wand at once for examination."

"You ... what?" James said in shock.

"Sir ... James ... please. Hand over your wand."

James pulled his anger back under control. Kingsley was one of his best aurors and also one of the few he considered a friend rather than a coworker. He pulled his wand out of his robe pocket and handed it over butt first. "There better be a  _damned_  good explanation for this, Auror Shacklebolt."

The other man did not respond. Instead, he took the wand and handed it over to another auror who performed the Priori Incantatem Charm on it. Other than a few minor Transfigurations and Scourgify Charms, James had not used his wand all day.

"Well," he asked impatiently.

Shacklebolt ignored him. "We'll need to check the wands of Lily and Jim, just to be certain. And also perform a magical search of the manor house to confirm that there are no other wands on the premises."

"The  _hell_  you will!" James roared. "You will not intrude upon my wife, my son, my home, or my person one tiny bit more until somebody tells me  _what the hell is going on!"_

Kingsley took a deep breath. "Approximately six hours ago, Chief Auror, three individuals penetrated the security at Azkaban Prison and staged a successful jailbreak that liberated Sirius Black, all three of the Lestranges, and Augustus Rookwood."

James stared at his subordinate nearly slack-jawed. "That's ... that's impossible," he said weakly.

"Six hours ago, I would have said the same. And yet, it has happened."

"Do we have any idea who's responsible?" James asked in a shaky voice, as he struggled to come to grips with the magnitude of the night's disaster.

Kingsley hesitated and then took a second deep breath. "According to all available evidence, the three intruders were Michael Proudfoot, Cornelius Fudge ... and  _you._ "

And for only the second time in his entire life, James Potter was rendered completely speechless.


	7. Azkaban

**CHAPTER 7: Azkaban**

The island of Azkaban first came to the attention of Wizarding Britain in 1443 when non-magical (for Muggle was not yet a word) traders reported sighting a previously uncharted isle halfway between the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Even more surprisingly, those traders claimed that there was a mighty fortress already built there with a foreboding tower far taller than even the greatest castles of the British Isles. While the non-magical authorities dismissed the reports as the result of too much liquor, word soon passed to wizarding ears. Curious and concerned, the Wizengamot sent an expedition to the island.

What they found there was the stuff of nightmares.

The island had apparently been raised from the seabed by the dreaded Emeric the Evil sometime during the previous century, and he constructed a great tower there for some fell purpose. After Emeric's fall and execution, his disciple, the dark wizard Ekrisdis, claimed the island and tower for his own ends and hid both behind impenetrable wards and invisibility charms. Ekrisdis dwelt in the tower of Azkaban for nearly a century while continuing his vile experiments into the darkest arts (usually on captured non-magical sailors) until death from old age finally claimed him. Azkaban's protective charms endured for nearly twenty years after Ekrisdis's death before failing and leaving the island visible to the world.

Most of the horrors contained within Azkaban were scoured away by the Wizengamot's expeditionary forces, though many wizards lost their lives in the attempt and many others later  _took_  their own lives rather than live with the knowledge of what they had seen. Yet the greatest horror of Azkaban could not be purged. For in the caverns and tunnels beneath the tower lay something that was  _beyond_  a nightmare – a nest of Dementors numbering in the hundreds. Though Dementors were known to the wizards of Britain and Europe, their numbers had been thought small. Previously, most Dementors had been encountered individually or, at worst, in packs of three to five. Before Azkaban was revealed, most wizards would not have believed there to be more than a few hundred Dementors in the world, let alone in a single place. But the great pit that lay beneath the foundation of Azkaban  _teemed_ with the creatures. Frightened and unable to cleanse the island of its Dementors, the Wizengamot withdrew, sealing the island away with its most powerful wards and Notice-Me-Not Charms in the hopes that the folly of Emeric and Ekrisis could be safely forgotten.

And so it  _was_ forgotten for nearly three centuries until the International Statute of Secrecy was passed into magical law and the wizarding world was changed forever. Among the unforeseen difficulties imposed by the Statute were certain problems inherent in wizarding criminal justice. Despite the best efforts of the aurors, jailbreaks had always been surprisingly common among the wizarding criminal classes, for few local jails could be built to withstand the power and versatility of magical rescue attempts perpetrated by outsiders even when the inmates had been stripped of their wands. Before the imposition of the Statute, such escapes would result in local authorities, both magical and mundane, joining forces to track down escapees under what British common law would later call  _posse commitatus_. But after the Statutes' passage, the magic used during such jailbreaks risked drawing the attention of Muggles (so named now because it was deemed essential that such non-magicals be fooled, or "mugged" in the vernacular of the day, into thinking that magic did not exist), and wizarding law enforcement was forbidden to seek the assistance of their Muggle counterparts except in the most extreme circumstances. To address these concerns, the Wizengamot directed the newly established Ministry of Magic to devise plans for a new prison in some remote location from whence escape would be impossible.

During this same time, the British Isles were increasingly plagued by wild Dementors who were eventually traced back to lost and fabled Azkaban. Frightened both by the danger of these Dementors and by their challenge to the nascent Statute of Secrecy, the Wizengamot charged Damocles Rowle, then the Minister of Magic, with addressing both the Dementor threat and the need for a new prison. His solution to both problems pleased virtually no one.

In 1718, Minister Rowle journeyed to Azkaban and somehow initiated a dialogue with a representative of its Dementor population. Together, they brokered the Treaty of Azkaban. The exact text of the Treaty was classified at the highest level by Ministry security, but the general terms are fairly well-known among modern British wizards and witches. The Tower of Azkaban would become the new prison for Wizarding Britain. The Dementors would act as guards under the direction of a skeleton crew of aurors and other DMLE personnel. The Dementors would only give the Kiss to inmates under very specific circumstances but were otherwise free to feed upon the misery of the inmates. And those inmates would consist of every wizard or witch convicted of treason, murder, rape, assault on the person of a member of the Wizengamot or their families ... or nearly any lesser crime upon a second offense. Life imprisonment in Azkaban was also the penalty for escape attempts, successful or not, from any of the Ministry holding facilities where persons convicted of lesser crimes were detained, while escape attempts from Azkaban itself were punished with the Dementor's Kiss.

While all of those terms are well-known across Wizarding Britain, there were three additional treaty terms that were deemed highly classified information and kept from the public. First, should any prisoner actually escape from Azkaban, the Dementors would have the absolute right to pursue them wherever they might run in order to administer the Kiss, even onto the British mainland itself. Second, the Ministry was  _obligated_  to ensure a minimum number of magical inmates for the Dementors to feed upon, and from time to time, the Ministry was compelled by its treaty obligations to imprison wizards and witches in Azkaban who would not normally be eligible for such extreme punishment. Over the 175 years since the Treaty was brokered, shortfalls in the necessary prison population were usually satisfied through imprisoning lower class wizards and witches with criminal records and no family connections who could be charged with recidivism no matter how minor their subsequent crimes were. Failing that, the Ministry typically relied on political prisoners or, more rarely, people cursed with enemies rich and powerful enough to bribe the right people. The final secret term held that if the shortfall of prisoners persisted for long enough – defined by the treaty as one year and one day – the treaty itself would become void, and the Dementors would no longer be bound to Azkaban. Those last three terms were deemed of the highest security by the Rowle Administration, and knowledge of them was passed down to a relatively small number of people over the intervening 175 years.

The three people who came to visit Azkaban Prison on the night of July 31st in the year 1993, alas, were not among those privy to those secret terms.

* * *

_**31 July 1993  
6:00 p.m.** _

Seabase Acheron was a raised sea platform which had been installed at the command of Minister Rowle at the start of Azkaban's service as magical prison. So-named because those who first worked the base considered it the entryway to Hell itself, Acheron was situated just outside the anti-Apparation and anti-Portkey wards which covered Azkaban Island. And like Azkaban itself, Seabase Acheron almost never had any visitors other than a semi-annual surprise inspection by the Minister of Magic and the Chief Auror. That the Chief Auror chose to hold the surprise inspection on this day of all days was a very big surprise indeed.

After Chief Auror Potter, Minister Fudge, and their bodyguard, Auror Michael Proudfoot, arrived with a pop on Seabase Acheron's apparation platform, they waited for several minutes in the cold North Sea drizzle before the aurors stationed there arrived to "greet" them. Several of the guards who came running up were still adjusting their clothes, and one poor sod was still trying to put on a boot while hopping pitifully in their direction. Those in the lead initially had wands pointed in the direction of the intruders, but while none of the Azkaban staff had actually met James Potter yet, they'd all seen his picture by now, and they immediately stowed their wands. One particularly startled auror actually tried to give a salute with his wand still in his hand, with the end result that he nearly stabbed himself in the eye with it. While Fudge tried to hide a smile, Potter was far less amused as he glanced down at a pocket watch.

"Three minutes, twelve seconds before a single auror showed up after an unannounced and unauthorized apparation," Potter said contemptuously. "I'm not impressed so far."

"We'll work harder to live up to your expectations as we move forward, Chief Auror," came a voice from the doorway to the building nearby. Then, a stocky older wizard with a fierce expression stepped out, and the aurors parted to make way for him. "I am Warden Stark, chief of this facility. I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting any of you distinguished gentlemen in person, though of course, Minister Fudge and Chief Auror Potter need no introduction. Nevertheless, identity papers, please."

Fudge reached into his pocket – causing the assembled aurors to stiffen and prepare cutting hexes – and removed a scroll which he handed over. "We're here for the annual inspection."

"How interesting, considering our last annual inspection was five years ago. I despaired of living long enough to see another one." The Warden carefully reviewed the paperwork which all seemed in order. Then, in a startlingly smooth move, he flicked his wand out of its holster and pointed it directly in the face of James Potter. "Your wands, gentlemen. There are protocols to be observed, after all. And I'll have the briefcase too, Minister Fudge."

Potter narrowed his eyes somewhat angrily. Then, he drew his wand and handed it over butt first. Fudge and Proudfoot did likewise, the latter with obvious nervousness and discomfort.

Fudge, on the other hand, seemed almost amused by the proceedings. "I'd appreciate it if you wait until we're out of the rain before you search the briefcase, my good man. I have files in there I'd rather not see waterlogged." The guard who took the case nodded.

"I'm just happy to see that there  _are_ protocols to follow based on what I've observed so far," Potter said with a degree of contempt.

The Warden smirked. "Yes, I've no doubt you're pleased to think you've caught us with our trousers around our ankles, Chief Auror. However, the situation was perfectly under control."

"It hardly looked like it," the other man replied.

"That is because you mistake us for the guardians of Azkaban instead of its overseers. Our entire conversation has been observed by personnel in the top of the tower by the duty officers with whom I am in constant communication. Standard protocol, naturally. Had I but given the word or had you done anything the tiniest bit threatening to me or my men, you lot would have about twelve seconds before a score of Dementors showed up to give you a good look at what they keep under their hoods. As for my men down here whom you've caught in a something of a disarray, it is only because you arrived right in the middle of the annual birthday fete we hold to commemorate the victory of your son, the Boy-Who-Lived, over You-Know-Who. However, if that much ... frivolity offends you, I suppose we can abolish it going forward and just let the Christmas feast be our only celebration here." He paused and then gave Potter a sneering smile. "Unless, Chief Auror, you want us to cancel Christmas too."

Without waiting for an answer, Stark turned and headed on into the bunkhouse. The others followed, with the Azkaban aurors holding Potter, Fudge, and Proudfoot at wandpoint. Inside, the trio found themselves in a circular room with a metal grate for a floor. The other aurors surrounded the trio and stood with their backs against the wall. Then, Stark gave out a command, and a deluge of bitterly cold Thief's Downfall poured in through another grate in the ceiling. All three visitors cried out in surprise and shock. After five seconds of this, the downpour stopped, but the aurors kept their wands trained on the now-drenched trio. Casually, Stark removed his own pocketwatch and began timing.

"Kindly remain still, gentlemen, for another twenty seconds. I wouldn't want one of my men to become alarmed at some furtive movement and slice your head off. We don't use Stunners at Azkaban."

The three men stood perfectly still save for bitter shivering before Stark finally put his watch away. "All clear. No Imperiuses or illusions. No immediate signs of Polyjuice." He nodded with mock respect towards Fudge and Potter. "Mind you, we  _will_  be waiting for a solid hour before proceeding to the prison itself, just to be on the safe side.  _Protocol_ , you know."

He turned and headed towards a heavy door. "Get them dried off and then send them to my office." At his command, the aurors stepped forward and administered Drying Charms followed by Pepper-Up Potions. Proudfoot swallowed his with a faint but detectable nervousness at the Warden's words, but if they troubled either Potter or Fudge, neither man showed it. Moments later, all three were in Warden Stark's office partaking of lukewarm tea and stale biscuits.

"My apologies for the quality of our libations, gentlemen. One of the many side effects of proximity to Azkaban is that most foodstuffs tend to lose their taste quite quickly. Indeed, I suspect that our little supper we were holding in Jim Potter's honor will be nearly inedible by the time I can return to it."

Potter frowned at that, but it was Fudge who finally spoke. "With all due respect, Warden Stark, your conduct towards us since our arrival, well, frankly flirts with insubordination."

Stark snorted. "I don't flirt with insubordination, Minister. I grab it round the waist and kiss it so deep I can massage its tonsils." Then, he leaned forward in his chair. "I have been the Warden of Azkaban for  _fifteen years_ , Fudge. Three times longer than the longest serving of my predecessors, seven of whom died by their own hand over the centuries since this hellhole was refashioned into a prison. In fact, my  _very first_  official action as Warden was to scourgify my predecessor's bloodstains off the walls of my new living quarters. If you find me insubordinate when I register my displeasure with you pompous lot staging a surprise inspection right in the middle of our Jim Potter Day festivities, by all means, replace me ... if you can find someone to take the job."

Potter studied the man carefully and recalled what he knew about him. Matthias Stark had been an exemplary auror back in the late 1970's, but Death Eaters had wiped out his entire family – a wife, three children (and their spouses), and seven grand-children in the space of just a few months. The Healers at St. Mungo's refused to clear him to return to active duty, but after the last Warden's suicide, no one else would accept the position that Stark himself had sought out and claimed with apparent gusto. Potter met the man's gaze steadily, but for the life of him, he couldn't tell whether Stark had stayed on at Azkaban for fifteen years because of his devotion to the cause of the Ministry and of Justice ... or because of the personal satisfaction he took from overseeing the torment of the Death Eaters condemned to the prison. And even if it was the latter, was such sadism the result of losing his family to Death Eaters? Or losing his happy memories to Azkaban?

"Warden," Potter said, "obviously we got off on a poor footing for which I apologize. As you know,  _last year's_ Jim Potter Day saw a terrorist attack on my son and others by means of a Death Eater weapon. It was the same attack that maimed my predecessor for life and forced him from his position. And today is the anniversary of that attack."

"I am well aware of these events, Chief Auror," Stark said coldly. "Rufus and I have had opportunity to discuss them at length."

" _Ah,_ " thought the other man _, "Stark is friends with Rufus Scrimgeour. That would certainly explain his attitude towards me. Pity it's too late to be someone else._ "

"We're here tonight, Warden," James said aloud, "because in the year since, we have no further information on who staged that attack and why. It was my hope that, under cover of a ' _surprise inspection_ ,' we can interview the members of You-Know-Who's inner circle with Veritaserum and perhaps get some useful intelligence without causing any sort of panic or press overreaction."

Stark sat back in surprise. "And you don't think that the media will notice you leaving your son's official birthday fete to visit Azkaban and ask questions?"

"Let them," Fudge replied. "If anyone does notice, our story is that James wanted to do a snap inspection on his son's birthday to prove that he would not let his role as Jim's father and protector distract him from his official duties. Besides, as you've noted, today  _is_  one of the nation's busiest holidays. It would make sense to do a surprise inspection at a time when your security might be under unusual stresses or otherwise distracted. But our hope is that the  _Prophet_  will simply focus on all the other human interest stories arising from today's festivities and not even notice we're here."

Stark nodded. "I suppose that does make sense."

"So with that in mind," Potter said, "we'd like to start our ' _security review_ ' with the Maximum Security Wing."

"That shouldn't be a problem," the Warden said, "once we've finished clearing you for admittance to the facility. We have another forty minutes left to confirm that none of you is a Polyjuiced intruder, followed by transport to the top of the tower and then  _another_  quick dunk in some Thief's Downfall." He smirked at their dismayed looks. "Security protocols. I'm sure you understand."

The men did, for they had been studying the Azkaban security protocols thoroughly for most of the summer. Their plans demanded it.

* * *

__**23 June 1993  
Longbottom Manor  
(29 days ago)**

_After some amiable chit-chat over brunch (Jim noticed that Augusta and Harry both resolutely avoided asking how his parents were doing), the three boys headed upstairs to get their broomsticks. Harry tarried in the rear, and before he left the sunroom, he turned back to Augusta._

" _How long should I keep him occupied?" he asked quietly._

_She glanced up at the wall clock which read 11:15. "Until sunset if possible. I'll have a house elf send you a picnic lunch around two o'clock."_

_Harry nodded and followed his friend and his brother upstairs._

By 11:30, all three boys were out of the house and would be for some time. From the parlor window, Augusta watched them as they flew happily over the topiary garden. Then, she drew the curtains and moved to the fireplace where she tossed in some floo powder.

"Malfoy Manor," she said. Barely a moment later, Lucius Malfoy poked his head through the fire. "They're gone. You may come through now, though I remind you of the oaths you sworn while in Longbottom Manor and the price you will pay if you are foresworn."

Lucius nodded gravely. "I fully understand." With that, he stepped through the fire into the parlor with a leather satchel at his side. Augusta sat down in a nearby chair, and Lucius sat opposite her across a coffee table.

"I must say, Lord Malfoy, that I was ... impressed by the urgency with which you requested to meet with me. Not to mention the stringency of the oaths you were willing to swear before I would allow you to enter. If I may be blunt, what business could the Houses of Longbottom and Malfoy possibly have in common that could be so important to you?"

"In all honestly, Lady Augusta, that rather depends on whether or not you are familiar with this item." He reached into the satchel and withdrew a book which he placed on the coffee table facing her.

 _ **The Anathema Codex**_.

"Ah," she said quietly, "I see."

"You are familiar with this work?" he asked, only mildly surprised at her calm and poise. Lucius had always thought Augusta Crouch Longbottom had been Sorted incorrectly.

"Archie and I had no secrets from each other, and there were ... trust issues between him and his brother Algernon. Also, I was the second oldest child of House Crouch in my generation, and it had been our family's policy to make certain at least two family members knew of the book, if not its contents. Now, what relevance does that accursed tome have to our discussions, Lord Malfoy?"

He took a deep breath. "Perchance, m'lady, did you ever have opportunity to read the passages about ...  _horcruxes_?"

* * *

__**Azkaban  
31 July 1993  
7:15 p.m.**

Fudge, Potter, and Warden Stark spent the next forty minutes making idle chit-chat about the state of Wizarding politics and the likelihood of Death Eater resurgence, while Auror Proudfoot sat quietly off to the side and occasionally made furtive glances towards the clock on the wall. Halfway through, an auror entered with Fudge's briefcase and informed the Warden that the case had contained several files, a few quills and an inkpot, and a number of vials containing Veritaserum and Pepper-Up Potions.

Fudge smiled. The most dangerous moment, as he saw it, had passed.

"The Pepper-Up is for me," he said genially. "The North Sea air disagrees with me. I'd rather not catch a cold if I can avoid it." Fudge's reasons for bringing Veritaserum were not expanded upon in front of the auror, who Stark dismissed without further comment.

Once the hour had passed, the Warden led the trio out to the dock on the side of Seabase Acheron that faced Azkaban Island. There was a small sailboat waiting for them, one that hardly seemed up to the challenge of crossing the choppy waters. To the visitors' surprise, however, the self-propelled boat made it about twenty feet away from the dock before suddenly becoming airborne. Within a few minutes, the flying vessel had made its way to the top level of the grim tower and "docked" next to a small balcony.

Once disembarked, the trio as promised was led through another thoroughly frigid dousing of Thief's Downfall and then forced to stand in front of a large oval mirror in which their reflections appeared nude but with any metal or wooden objects on their person still visible. Finally, they passed through to the command center where their wands and Fudge's case were returned.

"Alright, you lot," Warden Stark addressed the aurors in the command center. "Our guests are here on business, so let's hop to it." Then, he moved over to the center of the room where there was a circular hole in the floor roughly fifteen feet across. Stark activated the Sonorous Charm and then called down the hole, his voice reverberating through the entire prison.

"THIS IS WARDEN STARK. TWO SECURITY PERSONNEL AND THREE APPROVED GUESTS WILL ACCOMPANY ME TO LEVEL TEN. NO DEMENTORS ARE TO RISE ABOVE LEVEL THREE UNTIL ORDERED OTHERWISE OR UNLESS THERE IS A LEVEL 3 OR HIGHER DEVIATION FROM PROTOCOL. SECURITY CODE ALPHA-HIPPOGRIFF-NINER-TWO-FARAMIR. CONFIRM!"

Curious, Auror Proudfoot moved over to the hole and looked down. Then, he staggered back as if struck by vertigo. The hole appeared to cut all the way down the center of the fifteen-story tower, and staring down into the depths made his head spin. Nevertheless, he leaned over for another look just in time for a terrible rasping voice to rise up from the depths below.

" _[I/WE] ReCogNIZe sECuRiTyyyyyyyy C_ _oDe [_ **HATE YOU!** ].  
[I/WE] CoMPreHenD InStrUc-StrUc-StrUc-TioNs [ **HUNGER FEAST CONSUME!** ].  
[I/WE] ShaLL OooooobeY [ **ALL SOULS MUST MUST BE DEVOURED!** ]"

The voice and its sick mixture of obedience and vicious bile was disturbing enough. What made it worse was that Proudfoot suddenly realized that he had not heard the Dementor speak with his ears but in his head. And what made it worse still was that the Dementor spoke with the voice of his long-dead (and much hated) grandmother.

"Have you faced a Dementor before, lad?" Stark asked quietly and with much more kindness than he had shown so far that day.

"No," Proudfoot replied. "But I can do the Patronus Charm."

"You don't know if you can do a proper Patronus in front of a Dementor until you're actually in front of one. No amount of theory can prepare you for such an experience. But don't worry. As long as I and my men are on hand, you will be safe. And besides, the Dementors will obey their orders. You have nothing to fear so long as you do nothing to break protocol."

Proudfoot nodded very slowly at that. The Warden turned to his men. "Abernathy. Brown. With me. Wands out." Then, Stark led the assembled group to a nearby lift door which he unlocked by touching it with a brass rod attached to his belt by a chain. Seconds later, the six men were descending down into the bowels of Azkaban Prison.

"Well, Chief Auror," Fudge said softly and with some amusement. "Are you satisfied with the prison's security protocols so far?"

Potter nodded. "Very much so. Everything so far is exactly as it should be."

Behind them, Proudfoot swallowed nervously once more as he thought about what protocols he and his co-conspirators were about to break.

* * *

 __ **Longbottom Manor**  
21 July 1993  
1:10 p.m.  
(10 days ago)

"This?! This was the job offer you wrote me about?!" Marcus spluttered in a fury. "A bloody  _JAILBREAK FROM AZKABAN?!"_

Harry pursed his lips. In retrospect, he'd hoped to ease Marcus into joining their little conspiracy. Lucius, however, decided instead to rip the band-aid off by leading with the fact that what they planned constituted an act of treason for which they themselves could be sent to Azkaban for life if they got caught. And the likelihood of that rose considerably if they didn't have at least one more participant who was proficient with the Patronus Charm.

Marcus took a deep breath to calm himself. Then, he shook his head. "I swore an oath of secrecy and I'll stay bound by it. But I want no part of whatever madness you've got cooked up." Then, he met Harry's eyes. "And I hope you'll reconsider your own involvement, Harry. You're ... you're better than this."

With that, he turned back towards the doors, while behind him the conspirators looked back and forth at one another, with "Mr. Cato" in particular looking intently at Harry. Just as Marcus reached for the door handle, the other boy finally spoke.

"Voldemort is still alive."

Marcus froze instantly. For a second, he felt dizzy, like his hand was at once inches from the door handle and also miles away.

"You're lying," he whispered just loud enough for the others to hear.

"In 1981," Harry continued, "his physical body was destroyed. But he survived in a kind of spirit form through the use of cursed objects called horcruxes into which he'd put pieces of his soul. Two years ago, he possessed Quirinus Quirrell and used him in a failed plot to steal an artifact from Hogwarts that would restore his body. Jim stopped him with my help. Last year, one of his horcruxes fell into the hands of a Hogwarts student. and Voldemort possessed  _him_  as well. It was really Voldemort who was responsible for everything that happened including all the petrifications. He was also the one who was really that prank on the Slytherin Quidditch team that almost saw us get frozen to death and Jim Potter blamed for it. Again, Jim and I put a stop to it, but if we'd been thirty minutes later, Voldemort would have returned and probably killed everyone at the school."

"Well," Lucius interrupted, "probably not  _everyone_. I'm sure he'd have stopped to speak with the children of his former servants to see if any would swear loyalty to his cause."

Marcus whirled around angrily. "I would  _NEVER ...!_ " But the words caught in his throat. " _Wouldn't I? The way I was raised, if the Dark Lord had shown up in the flesh?!"_

"We will never be rid of him," Harry said calmly, "until someone tracks down his horcruxes and destroys them all. And right now, other than Voldemort himself, the only people alive who might know  _anything_  about them are in the Maximum Security Level of Azkaban Prison."

"But why is that  _your_  job?!" Marcus spat out. By now, he was physically shaking. "Just tell the DMLE what you know and they can legally get whatever information you need!"

"We can't take the risk," said the Asian man. "Death Eaters who escaped punishment during the War have infiltrated the Ministry at its highest levels." He glanced towards Malfoy. "No offense."

"None taken," Lucius said dryly.

"As a consequence," the other man continued, "if any of those hidden Death Eaters found out about the existence of horcruxes and located one belonging to the Dark Lord before we finished destroying them ..."

"Who  _are_  you, anyway?"

"I won't be revealing that until you've taken a few more secrecy oaths, my boy, but when I was wearing another face, I used to be your DADA instructor."

Marcus looked at the man as if he were insane. "Whatever. This is still crazy. It's ... it's something a Gryffindor would do!"

"Marcus," Harry said calmly. "Gryffindors do what's right. Slytherins do what is  _necessary._  We need you for this. Please, help us."

Flint shook his head and then rubbed his face for a few seconds. " _The Dark Lord! Alive!_ " he thought. " _What would Old Ironside do?_ "

"What's your plan?" he said in a nearly broken voice.

* * *

_**Azkaban  
7:40 p.m.** _

The lift's descent was slow, and the grinding of ancient rusty machinery, punctuated by the occasional scream or plea for mercy from beyond the lift doors, only made it seem longer. Finally, the doors opened up to a large circular room with holes in the middle of the floor and ceiling. About twenty cells ringed the room along the exterior wall, twelve of them occupied. Instantly, the newcomers were nearly overcome by the smell of waste and the pitiful moaning of the inmates. Well, mostly moaning. Potter detected one female voice among the din that was ...  _singing_? And then, with a sick feeling, he realized that he recognized the voice.

"Who do you want to start with, Chief Auror?" Stark said.

"Sirius Black," Potter replied, his voice tight.

Stark barked out a harsh laugh. "Of course. Silly of me to ask." He led the group over to a particular cell. Within, a painfully thin man with long stringy black hair, a scraggly beard, and a dingy prisoner's uniform was seated on the floor. The walls of his cell were covered with markings. The most prominent were crude depictions of a stag and what looked like two dogs that had been carefully etched into the back wall. Around them were hundreds and hundreds of tiny hash marks, presumably meant to denote how long he'd spent in the cell. Finally, interspersed among the hash marks were three words repeated over and over again.

" _I'm Sorry Harry._ "

In response to the group's approach, Sirius Black looked up and his eyes widened. "I - _cough-_ I know you," he said with his eyes fixed blearily on James Potter. "You're my  _brother_."

Potter's breath caught in his throat, while Stark shook his head. "This is Chief Auror Potter, Black. You will show him respect."

But Sirius ignored the Warden completely. "Yes - _cough_ \- my brother ... in all but blood. My brother ... who was more ... of a brother ... than my  _real_  brother." Then, with a sudden flurry of movement, Sirius scurried over to the edge of his cell and grasped the bars.

" _James_! Please! Fight it! Remember the truth! Remember that it was  _Wormtail_  who betrayed you! Not me!  _WORMTAIL!"_

James turned to the Warden with an inquisitive look on his face.

"Yes," said Stark, "he's been ranting off and on about ' _Wormtail_ ' pretty much since he got here. By any chance do you know who he's talking about?"

The other man shook his head. "Not a clue."

At that, Sirius let out a low moan and started beating his head with his fists. Then, he suddenly looked up at Potter with a suspicious expression. "You're not James! Who  _are_  you?!"

Stark sighed. "Quite mad, I fear. I don't see how you'll get much useful information out of him. Or any of them really."

"It's a long shot," Fudge agreed, "but right now, it's all we have. Now, what's the  _protocol_  for opening the cell doors so we can administer the Veritaserum? I don't seem to see any locks on the doors."

"YES!" Sirius screamed. "FINALLY! GIVE ME VERITASERUM! ASK ME ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT!"

Stark flicked his wand angrily, and Sirius was flung back against the far wall. "Not another word out of you unless you're spoken to,  _Black_! Or else I'll have a Dementor up here to spend the night right outside your cell door. You don't want to go through that again, do you?"

The prisoner said nothing but just slumped back down to the floor. Potter narrowed his eyes angrily at the Warden before wiping his face clean of emotions. The Warden didn't notice as he'd already turned back to Fudge while producing the plain brass rod he'd use to activate the lift.

"We open the cells with this, Minister. A single touch with this will open any cell in the prison."

"One key for every cell?" the Minister said in surprise. "That seems a bit lax."

Stark smiled. "The key is linked to my biomagical signature. If anyone else even touches it, the alarms are triggered and the prison goes into lockdown." He took a step towards the cell with the key raised. "Now, shall we begin? We don't have all night."

"Truly spoken, Warden Stark," Fudge replied as he glanced towards Potter and Proudfoot. Then, in a blur of motion, he produced his own wand and aimed it at the Warden's back. " _ **STUPIFY!**_ "

The Warden dropped like a stone, as did the other two guards who were taken completely by surprise. In his cell, Sirius sat up in sudden shock, and immediately, James Potter turned his wand on the prisoner.

"Sorry, old man," he said almost sadly as he fired off a Stunner. "It really will be better this way."

"Proudfoot, guard the pit," he ordered. Then, he and Fudge nodded to one another before heading around the circular chamber, stopping in front of each inhabited cell to stun the prisoner inside. Some begged for mercy or freedom, some screamed obscenities or just gibberish, some seemed utterly oblivious, but all went down the same. When Potter came to the lift doors, he cast the strongest Colloportus Trimendium he could before continuing on his route. Meanwhile, Proudfoot stood guard nervously over the hole in the floor. Suddenly, a hideous rasping sound echoed up from the Pit some ten stories below. Proudfoot shifted his wand grip nervously.

"I ... I think they're coming," his said as his voice cracked.

"They must have sensed our use of magic," Potter replied without taking his attention from the Death Eaters he was busy stunning into submission so that none would have any memories of events. "Breach of protocol and what-not. Still no alarms, yet, so we shouldn't have anyone coming from above. When you can  _see_ them, cast your Patronus."

Finally, Potter and Fudge met up at the opposite side of the room, where the maximum security level's sole female prisoner waited. Within, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange was rocking back and forth, giggling inanely while singing what sounded like a children's song in a disturbing "little girl" voice.

" _Dead Muggle, dead Muggle, swinging in a tree_  
How many dead Muggles do you see?  
Tongues turned blue and faces gone grey  
Watch them all as they twist and sway!  
AHAHAHAHAHA!"

Potter stared aghast at the madwoman. "Well, this is just ...  _disturbing_ ," he finally said.

Fudge snorted as he stunned the woman. "You have a gift for the understatement," he said drily.

"Uh, they're definitely coming now!" Proudfoot exclaimed, his voice rising in terror. From somewhere below came the sound of furious chittering. "I ... I'm sorry ... I don't ... I don't think I can..."

Potter quickly moved to stand beside the younger man, and he placed his hand reassuringly on Proudfoot's shoulder. Then, he leaned in and whispered. "It's alright,  _Marcus_. Just remember. Everything you've ever wanted will be yours if you can just make it another hour."

The young man bit his lip and nodded. Then, both of them pointed their wands down into the hole and cast together. " _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM!**_ " In response, two blasts of silvery fog shot from their wands down towards the approaching Dementors who screamed in terror and fury.

* * *

 __ **22 July 1993**  
The Flint Home  
Noon  
(9 days ago)

Marcus had waited until lunch to tell his mother and father that he had accepted a new job and would be moving to Hogsmeade. To be honest, he'd stayed up must of the night unable to sleep. And while he'd planned to say something at breakfast, Aries Flint had slept in, as was usual for the mornings when his hangovers were particularly bad.

Marcus's mother, Alisandre, took the news well and was as congratulatory as she could be without provoking Aries's anger, which was a practice she'd been familiar with for most of their marriage. Not that it mattered. Aries himself was already furious.

"This is about that nonsense of you getting into the Auror Academy, isn't it, boy!?" Aries snarled.

"If I get in, I get in," Marcus replied. "If not, I'll do something else. Either way, I've got prospects now, and at least I won't be mooching off your coin, which you've been complaining about since I was a child."

Aries' eyes widened in anger. "Are you disrespecting me, boy?"

"Not at all, Da'. I'm just telling you my plans and letting you know that I'm no longer your concern. I'd thought you'd be pleased to see the back of me."

Aries snorted. "I will be, you useless lump. You with your fancy book learning and your prefect's badge. Thinking you're so much better than us."

"I don't think anything of the kind, Da'." And if Marcus put a little too much emphasis the word "think," it went right over his father's head.

A few insults later and Marcus had had enough. He rose from the table and flicked his wand, and a few seconds later, his already-packed trunk and his broom floated down the stairs.

"I'm going now," he said.

"An  _auror!_  As if the Academy would ever take a  _Flint_! And even if you got in, do you really think being an auror would save you  _when the Dark Lord returns?!_ "

Marcus turned back to his ranting father, a flash of anger in his own eyes. "The Dark Lord will  _never_ return! And if somehow he does, I will be  _honored_ to raise my wand against him!"

He turned back to leave ... only to be caught by surprise when his father grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, spun him around, and sucker-punched him in the face. Marcus fell to the floor, stunned for a moment, at which point Aries kicked him a few times.

"Aries! No!" Alisandre screamed.

Aries yelled at his wife to shut up and then turned back to continue his assault, only to freeze when he saw his son looking up at him in a murderous rage. And with his wand pointed at his face. Without breaking eye contact, Marcus rose to his feet. Then, he put his wand away before walking right up to his father to look him in the eye.

For a second, Marcus felt a strange dislocation. He'd not been this physically close to Aries in a long time and not looked him in the eye for longer. " _When did I get taller than Da'?"_  Marcus wondered in surprise. " _Has he shrunk or something?_ " Then, he shrugged off the feeling.

"Hit me again," he said aloud in a low dangerous voice. "Go on, Da'. Hit me. I. Dare. You."

But Aries didn't hit his son again. Because for the first time since his son's birth, Aries found himself afraid of Marcus. After a brief staring contest, Aries finally looked away, his face suddenly flushed. Then, Marcus went to his mother and kissed her on the cheek before moving to pick up his trunk.

"I won't be back here," Marcus said with finality as he walked out of the Flint home and into his future.

* * *

_**Azkaban  
7:52 p.m.** _

"Remember, no corporeal Patronus. Nothing to identify us." Proudfoot nodded again even as his brow furrowed in concentration. Then, Potter shouted over his shoulder. "Oh,  _Minister_. We can't do this for very much longer. Plus, we're making a bit of a ruckus now. We don't want the aurors to simply fly down from the top level on broomsticks, now do we?"

"Noted," Fudge said tersely. By that point, he had returned to his briefcase and extracted the inkwell which he'd opened and turned over, letting the ink pour out onto his hand. After a second, something solid came out as well: a small spherical object coated in black ink. He dropped the inkwell and pulled out his wand to cleanse both the item and his hand with a Scourgify. Within seconds, the object was revealed to be a luminous black pearl, which Fudge promptly tossed towards the open hole while casting a spell upon it. " _ **ENGORGIO MAXIMUM!**_ " In a flash, the pearl expanded to enormous size so that it completely blocked both the hole in the floor and the one in the ceiling. Potter and Proudfoot stepped back.

"And that's going to hold both the aurors and the Dementors?" Proudfoot asked dubiously.

"It's an Antipodean Black Pearl. It can withstand dragonfire. Anything that could damage it before we're done would probably destroy the whole tower in the process. It would be easier to dig a hole through the floor or wall and they're both transfiguration-resistant."

"Still," said Potter. "No reason to dawdle. Potion?"

Fudge pulled a potion vial from his bag and tossed it over. It was one of those that the guards on Seabase Acheron had identified as Veritaserum but which was, in fact, Draught of Living Death. The potion's true nature had been concealed by several very expensive and highly illegal vials often used by magical smugglers and criminals to make contraband potions look innocuous.

"The key is going to be a problem," Fudge said. "Can metamorphmagery duplicate a biomagical signature?"

"Nope," Potter replied. "Which means we are now officially on a tight schedule."

As he spoke, he moved to the unconscious body of Warden Stark and retrieved the brass key. Instantly, a deafening klaxon went off. Potter ignored it and touched the key to Sirius Black's cell, causing the cell door to vanish. He tossed the key to Fudge and entered the cell. There, he fed a few drops Draught of Living Death to Sirius Black before checking his vitals with a diagnostic spell. Satisfied, Potter touched his wand to Sirius's forehead and began the transfiguration.

Normally, full-body transfiguration of living human beings was incredibly difficult and taxing even for masters of the art. Transfiguration of the dead, however, was no more difficult than transfiguring any other inanimate object. And luckily for all concerned, a living body put into stasis with Draught of Living Death was "dead enough" for transfiguration purposes. Ten seconds later, Potter exited the cell carrying a small red brick with the name "S. Black" stamped onto it which he deposited in the Minister's case. Across the room, Minister Fudge was transfiguring Rabastan Lestrange into a similar looking brick.

Four minutes later, bricks representing Sirius Black and all three Lestranges were stowed away in Fudge's brief case. However, it was clear that time was growing short. There were sounds of spellfire coming from outside the lift door and from above the giant pearl, while the room had grown bitterly cold from the presence of what was likely an army of angry Dementors on the floor below. Fudge took a moment to pass out the three "Pepper-Up Potions" which were actually disguised Calming Draughts that would aid in resisting the Dementors' effects. Then, Fudge and Potter converged outside the cell of the last prisoner they would have time for today.

"Are you absolutely sure we need him?" Fudge asked.

"I hate to say it, but other than Sirius, he's probably the one we need  _most_."

Fudge frowned but then gestured for Potter to open the door. Then, he went inside and stunned the unconscious man two more times for good measure.

"Is that really necessary?" asked Proudfoot anxiously.

"Yes," Fudge replied tersely. He knelt and fed a few drops of the Draught of Living Death to the prisoner before casting a diagnostic spell. His eyes widened slightly, and then he poured more of the elixir down before casting the spell again. "Shit!"

"What?" Potter asked urgently.

"It's not working. He still has residual brain function  _despite_ being under Draught of Living Death."

"That's impossible!"

"That's  _Rookwood_ ," Fudge hissed. Then, he sighed in frustration. "We won't be able to transfigure him. Can the portkey handle his additional weight?"

Potter hesitated. "It should, but there will be little room for error. It is an experimental portkey after all."

Fudge nodded and then waved his wand all over the unconscious Augustus Rookwood. Instantly, his prison garb was transfigured into a heavy straightjacket that bound his arms tightly. With another wand-wave, the prisoner's food tray wrapped itself around his head and transformed into a heavy iron mask that both blocked Rookwood's vision and prevented any sort of speech.

"Is he really this dangerous?" Proudfoot asked nervously.

"Other than the Dark Lord," Fudge hissed angrily, "there is only one man alive I fear. And against my better judgment, I am about to free him from prison!"

Meanwhile, Potter had retrieved Fudge's briefcase and removed a parchment from within. He placed it on the floor of Rookwood's cell and then cast an overpowered Finite at it. Instantly, it resumed its true form: a large area rug within which a number of runes had been woven, runes that George Weasley would have recognized at once. He then laid the briefcase in the center of it and transfigured it into a steamer trunk into which the unconscious and bound Rookwood was unceremoniously dumped.

"We'll leave from in here. It's farthest away from the lift and there's an empty cell on each side. Less chance of anyone getting hurt, whether auror or prisoner."

"Your concern for convicted murderers is touching," said Fudge. "But are we quite certain we don't want to eliminate the other Death Eaters now while we have the chance? Better that than face them in battle later."

"Oi!" exclaimed Proudfoot. "I didn't sign up for mass murder."

Potter hesitated for an uncomfortably long time. "Agreed," he finally said.

"Hmmph," snorted Fudge. "Life in Australia has made you soft,  _Potter."_

"Yeah," the other man replied. "And life with my cousin has made you hard,  _Fudge_. Now everyone aboard the carpet. Proudfoot, hold onto the trunk and keep it from sliding around. I'm ... not exactly sure what that will do to the carpet ... or us."

"Hang on," the Minister interrupted. "I need to get the pearl."

"Are you mental?!" Proudfoot exclaimed. "The aurors and Dementors will get in if you do that!"

"If this  _experimental portkey_  upon whom we've staked our freedom, reputations, and lives can't get us out of here fast enough to evade Dementors, then we were always doomed anyway. Meanwhile, the pearl is not only a priceless art object for which I paid  _200,000 galleons_ , it's also  _something that can be traced back to me if it falls into the DMLE's hands_!"

And with that, Fudge fired off a Finite and an Accio in quick succession. The pearl shrank back to its normal size and then flew into Fudge's hand. Instantly, the temperature plunged as a horde of furious Dementors poured into the room like a black storm cloud full of cruelty and hate. Despite himself, Proudfoot screamed in terror.

"NOW!" Fudge yelled.

"CUE DRAMATIC ESCAPE!"Potter shouted to activate the portkey. The nearest Dementor was less than a foot away when suddenly there was a sizzle of electricity, a strong smell of brimstone, and a blinding flash of light. And from the deck of Seabase Acheron, the aurors who were mustered on deck and preparing to send reinforcements looked up in astonishment as a massive explosion shook Azkaban Tower and blew a huge gaping hole in the exterior wall right where the Maximum Security Level should be.

* * *

_**From a letter dated 24 July 1993  
(8 days earlier)** _

_RAB –_

_As you claimed, the modified Polyjuice Potion you provided lasts for roughly three times the normal length and is completely resistant to Thief's Downfall. However, the total duration of the transformation effect is inconsistent, and I would not rely on it for more than 150 minutes. More importantly, when the effect ends, the drinker will be overcome by violent nausea that lasts for nearly a day. In the immediate aftermath (roughly the first fifteen minutes after termination of effect), the sickness is so severe that spellcasting is impaired. I absolutely would not risk Apparation while under the side effects. Luckily, I know a portkey artificer who would be willing to provide us with conventional portkeys and even submit to Obliviation if the price is right._

–  _LM_

* * *

__**Longbottom Manor  
9:30 p.m.  
**

"My Lady," the house elf Hoskins said with appropriate pomp and circumstance, "your guests have arrived."

Momentarily, three exhausted figures, two of whom seemed quite sick, entered the study where Augusta and Harry waited. The trip had been arduous due to the understandable paranoia of the travelers – they had taken a total of three portkeys (in addition to the experimental one that had enabled their escape from Azkaban .. and that had later started a small fire in the Galloway Forest upon its arrival there) on a circuitous path around the British Isles, pausing at each new portkey site to carefully erase any magical evidence of their passage. They had also paused for fifteen long minutes to transfigure their clothing into something less conspicuous and, in the case of "Fudge" and "Proudfoot," to allow the effects of their modified Polyjuice Potions to wear off. There had been much vomiting involved.

"Success, gentlemen?" Augusta asked without looking up from her solitaire. Harry was less relaxed and actually shot up out of his chair when Regulus, Lucius Malfoy, and a green-looking Marcus Flint burst into the room, with a large steamer trunk floating close behind. Flint, in particular, looked like respect for the expense of the Longbottom carpets was all that kept him from getting sick once again.

"Qualified success, m'lady," Lucius said in a shaky but dignified voice. "Rookwood is ... contained, but not as completely as the others. I believe you indicated that you had a suitable storage place if that became an issue?"

She nodded. "Hoskins, show our guests and their ... luggage to the dungeon."

"There's ... a dungeon here, Lady Augusta?" Harry asked in surprise. Actually imprisoning the retrieved Death Eaters had not been part of the plan.

"The foundations of the manor date back to the original Longbottom Keep which was built in the 7th century. The first Lord Longbottom was, well, a bit of a blood-thirsty warlord by modern standards, but probably no more so than the rest of the old Wizards Council. I suppose the dungeons have been kept intact all this time because his heirs wanted a reminder of how civilized they've become. Or perhaps they were just concerned that civility might not always last and it was best to be prepared for future barbarism."

From a nearby padded chair, Marcus downed a Stomach Soother Potion and then sipped gently from a snifter of brandy that Harry had handed him.

"I still can't believe you talked me into this," he said to Harry almost reproachfully.

"Was it that bad?" Harry asked.

"Bloody Dementors were almost close enough to touch me because Lord Malfoy had to reclaim his  _special magic pearl_!" Marcus shook his head. "No offense, Lady Longbottom, but I surely wish Neville could have come with us. We could have used his Patronus."

"I had two ironclad conditions before I agreed to participate in this mad scheme," Augusta said, returning to her solitaire as if nothing had changed. "One was that Neville would have nothing to do with this and would never even know about our role in it."

Marcus nodded. "And the other one?" he asked out of curiosity.

"That none of the Lestranges leave here alive," she said as if discussing the weather. Marcus gulped and then returned to his brandy.

Moments later, Regulus and Lucius returned from the dungeon.

"Rookwood is stored safely away," Reg said. "He's bound in chains and a straight jacket, gagged, blindfolded, and under Living Death. Plus, just in case he has any awareness of his situation, his mask is Charmed to sing a song called ' _Tip Toe Through the Tulips_ ' on a continuous loop. If that's not enough to keep him from being a problem, then we might as well give up now."

"And on that note," Lucius said. "I must depart for home. Draco returns tomorrow from his visit with his little Muggleborn friend." He paused and then let out a soft laugh. "Which is something I could not have possibly ever saying imagined a year ago."

"So what's next?" Marcus asked blearily.

"We take a few days off to recuperate," Regulus answered. "Make sure there's no fallout from the jailbreak that might change our plans. Then, we'll meet up with the Legilimens Harry has recommended. If he's up to snuff and will agree to the necessary oaths, we can hopefully start interrogating the Death Eaters by the end of the week."

"There will be no fallout," Lucius said confidently. "The hard part is over. I expect everything to go smoothly from here on out."

* * *

_**1 August 1993  
From the front page of the Daily Prophet** _

_**!**_ _ **DEATH EATERS ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN**_ __ **!**  
SIRIUS BLACK! BELLATRIX LESTRANGE!  
THE LESTRANGE BROTHERS! AUGUSTUS ROOKWOOD!  
YOU-KNOW-WHO'S ENTIRE INNER CIRCLE!  
WHO WILL SAVE US FROM THE DEATH EATER MENACE?

* * *

_**3 August 1993  
From the front page of the Daily Prophet** _

__**WIZENGAMOT TO ENTER EMERGENCY SESSION!  
MINISTER FUDGE TO DEMAND REINSTATEMENT OF DEATH EATER LAWS!  
CALLS FOR NEW AUTHORITY TO DEAL WITH DEATH EATER MENACE!**

* * *

_**5 August 1993  
From the front page of the Daily Prophet** _

__**DEMENTORS UNLEASHED!**  
FUDGE UNVEILS CONTROVERSIAL NEW PLAN!  
WILL USE DEMENTORS TO GUARD HOGWARTS AGAINST  
DEATH EATER MENACE!

* * *

_**5 August 1993  
Malfoy Manor** _

Lucius Malfoy sighed as he reviewed the days headlines. "Well, for some definitions of ' _smoothly_ ,' I suppose.


	8. Reactions & Overreactions p1

**CHAPTER 8: Reactions and Overreactions (pt 1)**

__**The Ministry of Magic  
4 August 1993  
8:30 a.m.**

With a tremendous  _whoosh_ , Harry Potter passed through the green flames of the floo at Longbottom Manor and stepped into the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic. Lady Augusta followed behind, while Artemus Podmore was waiting on the other side for them both. Once through, Harry paused to look around in wonder. He had never been to the Ministry before, but so far, it lived up to his expectations. The Atrium was a massive cavernous area decorated in an art deco style. Around its perimeter were scores of brightly lit floos from whence scores upon scores of Ministry personnel came and went. Until he saw for himself just how packed the Atrium was even this early in the morning, Harry had never truly appreciated just how many witches and wizards were Ministry employees.

Then, he relaxed his Occlumency and looked again, using senses both more nuanced and more obscure than mere vision.

Suddenly, all around him, Harry could feel an undercurrent of tension and fear. Of the people moving around the Atrium, perhaps one in four had their wands out and gripped tightly in their hands as if expecting an attack at any moment. High on the walls of the four corners of the Atrium, balconies had been hastily constructed for use by auror sniper detachments armed not with wands but with magical battle staves that had previously been mothballed since the end of the Wizarding War. At the far side of the Atrium, just past the garish bit of statuary known as the  _Fountain of Magical Brethren_  was the entryway to the Ministry proper which was now guarded by two ten-foot-tall security trolls. The behemoths growled softly at the nervous wizards and witches standing in line for magical identification, as if they were waiting for a chance to smash a Death Eater with the clubs they carried. For just a second, Harry was overcome by a miasma of barely restrained panic before he reasserted his Occlumency shields and dialed down his developing Legilimency senses. Luckily, Mr. X had warned him about the danger of large crowds at this point in his training, and Harry was able to shake off the brief but stifling emotional resonance as his solicitor stepped forward.

"Good morning, Harry. Lady Augusta," Artie said genially.

"That remains to be seen, Solicitor Podmore," Augusta said grimly. "An ' _Emergency Session_ ' of the Wizengamot? Those have never ended well in the past, and I fear today's will go no better."

The magical solicitor nodded. "True. However, this does represent an unusual opportunity for Harry here to see the Wizengamot in full session. Usually, that only happens while he's away at Hogwarts. I do wish you'd consented to allow young Neville to come today for the same reason."

"Neville is abroad," Augusta said with a touch of coldness, as if to remind Podmore that he was not  _her_ solicitor and had no say in Neville's upbringing. "Given the history between the Longbottoms and Lestranges, that is where he will stay until this situation is resolved or he returns to Hogwarts, whichever comes first."

In fact, immediately after news of the Azkaban jailbreak had made the papers, Augusta owled a letter to Neville in Africa forbidding him to return to Longbottom Manor until further notice, supposedly out of concerns that the Lestranges might still have the means to bypass the Longbottom wards. She also instructed Reginald Longbottom to secure their African farms and keep a low profile until she contacted them again, either when the Lestranges had been recaptured or when it was time for Neville to return to Hogwarts, whichever came first. Of course, if things went according to plan, the Lestranges would  _never_  be recaptured by the Ministry or indeed be heard from again. Still, it was the exact same thing she'd have said and done had she  _not_  been a part of Regulus's conspiracy, and so it was fully in character for her.

As the trio left the floo, Harry and Artie stopped off at Ministry Munchies for a quick danish and pumpkin juice while Augusta left straight away for the Wizengamot level to change into her official robes.

"So how are you holding up with all this pandemonium?" Artie asked before biting into his breakfast.

Harry shrugged noncommittally. "To be honest," he lied easily, "it hasn't affected me at all. Certainly not like it has Neville or Lady Augusta."

"Hmm, well it's certainly affected your father. My understanding is they kept him in an interrogation room in his pajamas and bathrobe for several hours on Sunday morning after the jailbreak. Him  _and_ the Minister too."

"Really?" Harry replied with a trace of a smile. "How ... awful that must have been. But surely no one seriously thought that the Minister and the Chief Auror were really behind it all."

"No, but it took that long to rule out either a Confundus or the Imperius. Your father will be delivering his report today. Then, we'll see what the Ministry has to say for itself. My concern is that Fudge will be rattled enough and angry enough to propose something truly unwise."

"You don't like Fudge, do you?"

Artie frowned. " _Like_ has nothing to do with it. If the Death Eaters are back, then he's probably the wrong man for the job, but there's not much that can be done about that now. And in his defense, Fudge himself knows perfectly well that he shouldn't have the job and fell into it by accident."

Harry gave him a questioning look, so Artie took another sip of pumpkin juice before relating Fudge's political background.

"In 1990, Millicent Bagnold declined to run for a third term as Minister due to health issues. Albus Dumbledore was asked to stand for the office, but he refused in favor of staying at Hogwarts. That left the way open for Bartemius Crouch Sr. to run virtually unopposed. Fudge at that point was an up-and-coming junior minister with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. He threw his hat into the ring for Minister of Magic, but everyone understood that he was just trying to build name-recognition for some future office, most likely to get appointed head of the DMAC under a Crouch administration."

"So what happened?" Harry asked.

"The Quibbler, of all things! It had always been an offbeat, satirical publication, but back then it wasn't as, well,  _patently silly_  as it is today, and it still regularly published serious pieces along with its customary strangeness. Five weeks before the election, the Quibbler ran an expose about Crouch's son, Barty Jr., a Death Eater who died in Azkaban after receiving a life sentence from a judicial panel headed by his own father. The story painted Junior as a well-liked and genial Ravenclaw who fell in with the wrong crowd because his father neglected his family in favor of his politic ambitions. It also suggested somewhat luridly that Crouch's wife had died of a broken heart after her husband callously ensured the death of her only child. Most of the facts of Junior's case were well-known already, and the whole thing would have blown over had Crouch not completely overreacted. He gave an interview to the Prophet in which he said that when he was Minister, he'd look into having Xeno Lovegood thrown into Azkaban for sedition! That, in turn, led to more stories that cast some of his more ruthless decisions as head of the DMLE during the War in a fairly negative light."

"Such as?" Harry asked.

"Oh, where to begin. You are aware, I suppose, that during the latter days of the War, aurors were authorized under the Death Eater Laws to use Unforgivables?" Harry nodded. "Well, prior to 1990, very few people outside of the DMLE and the Wizengamot understood just how freely those aurors had been permitted to use those forbidden spells. Most common wizards assumed that the law only allowed them to use the Killing Curse in self-defense and had no idea that aurors were also permitted to use the Cruciatus in interrogations and even to use the Imperius on captured suspects for things like leading aurors past the defenses of Death Eater safe havens or even betraying and attacking other Death Eaters. It wasn't exactly classified, but the number of Unforgivables cast by aurors and the situations in which they were cast had mostly gotten swept under the rug. And Barty Sr. personally authored the legislation that allowed aurors to use Unforgivables and then wrote the DMLE guidelines governing how they could be used in the field. It shouldn't surprise you to hear me describe them as  _lax_ guidelines."

"But then, the Quibbler pulled that rug away and showed what was hidden underneath."

"Just so. Crouch may have been fervently opposed to the Death Eaters, but he was also ruthless and reactionary. A Muggleborn might have even described him as  _fascistic_. And unfortunately for Crouch, he had made it a point to remind everyone of what sort of Minister he might make at the worst possible moment."

"And so everyone voted for Fudge, instead," Harry said.

"Oh, not everyone. The election of 1990 – a contest between a ruthless and unlikable authoritarian and an amiable dunce – was one of the closest in the history of Wizarding Britain, with unsupported accusations of vote-buying and other improprieties on both sides. I voted for Fudge, but it was a protest vote. I'd honestly expected him to lose. Crouch only conceded when Fudge agreed to appoint him Senior Minister for the Department of International Magical Cooperation and also Britain's chief delegate to the ICW, two titles that gave Crouch international authority that trumped that of the Minister of Magic when dealing with international wizarding affairs."

"Wait, so Fudge just  _bought off_  his chief rival? And everyone knows about it?"

Artie shrugged. "That particular form of influence peddling isn't actually illegal under wizarding law. In fact, it's basically a tradition for an incoming Minister to reward whoever finished second with a prominent position of some sort. Usually, it's just a ceremonial one, but Crouch was certainly qualified to be Minister for the DIMC, and it's a position where he couldn't do much harm to Fudge's domestic agenda or personal popularity. But I digress. The end result was that Fudge, basically an okay but inexperienced fellow, unexpectedly landed in the Minister's chair and has been winging it ever since. And worse, though Fudge has never been a blood purist – or if he is, he's hidden it well – his base of support consisted heavily of suspected Death Eaters who were hellbent on keeping Crouch out of the Minster's position. Now to his credit, Fudge has made a point of relying on a diverse group of advisors but especially Albus Dumbledore, and as far as anyone knows, he's never taken any personal bribes."

" _Personal_  bribes?" Harry interrupted. "What other kind is there?"

Artie chuckled. "Usually ' _donations_ ' to Fudge's pet causes. Which again is not technically illegal so long as he doesn't personally benefit from those causes. Other than sales taxes levied on wizarding goods and services offered by privately-held companies, nearly all of the government's income is derived from fees that wealthy families pay to maintain their Wizengamot privileges. Since the rich elites are basically paying for the government anyway, it's generally considered acceptable for this or that family to donate large sums of galleons for particular government projects. This family pays for a new wing for St. Mungo's. That family pays for new dragon-hide armor for the auror corps. Etcetera etcetera. And it's only proper, in most people's eyes, for them to get certain  _special considerations_  in exchange for their largesse."

"This is probably just because I'm Muggle-raised, but wizarding culture sounds incredibly corrupt."

The older man shrugged. "It's a matter of perspective. The Muggle government taxes everyone and so, in theory at least, has to pay attention to everyone's wants, although it's not a surprise that it pays more attention to wealthier people than the poor. Among wizards, you need galleons to fund government projects, but the wealthy wizards are the only ones who have that much in liquid assets and so bear the brunt of taxation. Most common wizards don't have a lot of currency because they don't need it. With limited exceptions for food and shelter, magic can give you whatever you need to survive. If you know how to apparate, you can transport yourself almost anywhere. If you're good with Transfiguration, you can make most everyday items you need. If you know the Reparo Charm, nearly anything tangible you buy will last a lifetime or longer. In all of Diagon Alley, there are only four stores that sell clothing because only rich wizard-folk – or wizard-folk who want to be  _perceived_  as rich – bother to pay for clothing produced by other wizards instead of simply transfigured out of used garments. I believe the comparable Muggle term is  _post-scarcity society_. Most wizard-folk only need galleons in large quantities if they decide to operate a business of some kind, and they usually get the money from investors among the old rich families."

Harry wasn't entirely sure what  _post-scarcity_  meant, so he made a mental note to ask Hermione about it later. "So basically, most wizards and witches can take care of their own personal needs without any aid from the government, but for big ...  _society stuff_ , I guess, the Ministry provides it and pays for it with taxes mainly paid by the wealthiest families in exchange for 'special favors'?"

"A crude but accurate summation," Artie said. "And if you think Fudge is bad, you'd have hated Millicent Bagnold. She was the one who signed off on dismissing all charges against dozens of marked Death Eaters who claimed with little supporting evidence to have been under the Imperius. She concluded that Sirius Black's confession made convicting most of them an impossibility, so she agreed to dismiss most of the remaining prosecutions if those accused paid out enough galleons to essentially rebuild our whole society after a decade of constant destructive warfare."

Artie glanced at his watch. "But we can continue the history lesson later. We'd best head towards the gallery. There's still a long line at the security check point."

"Will we get there in time?" Harry asked.

"No fears, Harry," Artie said with a slight grimace. " _Roll call_  will probably take a full hour."

* * *

_**9:00 a.m.  
An opulent London high-rise apartment overlooking the Thames** _

Blaise Zabini had only just risen from his bed when he heard the soft pop that marked the arrival of his temporary "house guest." He frowned at the clock. The thought of being up this early during his summer vacation was appalling, but Harry had asked for his help, help that Blaise had reassured the other boy that only he was capable of giving. Indeed, Blaise was quite certain he knew exactly what Harry Potter needed in this instance even if the other boy did not. And so the boy pulled on his robe over his pajamas and sauntered into the living room where the Countess's "British" house elf, Domo, was standing guard over the new arrival. From Harry's description, the twitchy terrified elf who Domo regarded so suspiciously could only be ...

"Dobby, I presume," Blaise inquired.

The poor creature practically jumped at being addressed by a wizard. "Y-y-yess, I's is being D-D-D-D-Dobby, sir," he said in a cringing tone before handing a letter of introduction over to Domo who snatched it up, checked it for baleful magic, and then handed it to Blaise. The boy reviewed the note which, as expected, was a letter from Harry confirming that this was his elf Dobby and that he was placing Dobby into his care for a few days for " _training_." Oh, and that Harry would be very, very cross if any harm came to Dobby or if he were mistreated any more than he already had been at Malfoy Manor back before Draco stopped being a git. Blaise snorted softly and pocketed the letter.

"Do you understand why you are here, Dobby?" he asked.

Dobby nodded violently. "Because ... because ... DOBBY IS A WORTHLESS STUPID HORRIBLE EXCUSE FOR AN ELF!" And with that, Dobby began to wail and weep piteously. Next to him, Domo said nothing but rolled his eyes to register his disdain for the display.

"Zip it!" Blaise said forcefully, and instantly, Dobby gained a measure of control over himself, though he did make a point of blowing his nose on the hem of his dingy tea towel tunic.

"You are here," the boy continued, "to learn how to be a proper servant for Harry Potter. Do you  _want_ to be a house elf worthy of Harry Potter?"

"Oh yes!" Dobby said excitedly. "Master Harry Potter is the greatest most wonderful wizard in all the world! Dobby would do anything ...!"

"Zip! It!" Blaise snapped again. "Harry Potter has sent you to me because he trusts my judgment about what is needed to make you a proper servant for him. And believe me when I tell you that only the best, most perfect servant is what Harry Potter needs right now. Nothing less will do. Are you willing to trust me as your master does and follow my instructions regarding how to serve him better?"

Dobby swallowed deeply. "Dobby will follow Master Harry's friend's wisdom."

"Good." Blaise turned to the other elf. "Domo, you may return to your duties. I will take breakfast at 9:30 out on the balcony. Fruit Loops with whole milk and a carafe of fresh orange juice, if you please."

"At once, Master Blaise," Domo said with approval for Blaise's menu choice. Then, he glanced over to Dobby and lifted his chin haughtily before disappearing with a pop.

"Right. Come over here, Dobby." Blaise led the elf over to the other side of the room, where sat many strange and arcane objects the likes of which Dobby had never seen before.

"This ... is  _technology_ , Dobby. Specifically, a big screen TV and a VCR. Think of it as Muggle magic. It is not compatible with your magic, so you must not touch any of this yourself, or you might damage it. But on this screen will be projected moving pictures that will tell stories to show you how best to serve Harry Potter. When one story is finished, come and find me, and I will swap out the videotape for another. Do you understand?"

Dobby nodded affirmatively. Although he knew nothing of TVs or VCRs, the basic instructions so far were within his grasp. Blaise then removed a videotape from a plastic case and inserted it into the VCR before holding the tape case so that Dobby could see its front cover.

"Do you see these two Muggles, Dobby? Good. Now, as you watch the show, I want you to pay particular attention to these two people. And I want you to imagine that this thin man is Harry Potter, and that this larger man who is his servant is  _you_. Try to imagine responding to your master as this servant does to his. Do you understand?"

The house elf furrowed his brow. "Dobby thinks so. Dobby will do his best."

"Good. Now, sit comfortably and watch the whole program." With that, Blaise pressed the play button and then returned to his room to shower and get dressed, while Dobby sat on the floor and watched the television screen in wonderment as a jaunty fiddle and bass tune began to play and words appeared as if by magic.

STEPHEN FRY & HUGH LAURIE

as

JEEVES & WOOSTER

* * *

_**The Wizengamot Chambers  
9:45 a.m.** _

After a long wait in the newly-installed security line, Harry and Artie were finally allowed in, and Artie led the boy down into the bowels of the Ministry of Magic to the lowest level where the Wizengamot had already begun its Emergency Session.

"How can the Ministry possibly maintain a ten-story structure underneath  _Whitehall_  without Muggles having any idea?" Harry asked. "We're not that far from the Thames. Why doesn't this place flood? Or at least feel ... damp?"

"Magic?" Artie replied with a wink.

"You know, Artie, after a while it gets old hearing ' _magic_ ' offered as an answer to every serious question."

"Fair enough, Harry. How about ' _ancient powerful centuries-year-old magic using master-level spatial expansion and Notice-Me-Not Charms backed by the combined magical power of all the ancient oaths sworn by the original Wizengamot families._ ' Oh, and master-level water-proofing Charms as well, I suppose."

"See? Was that so hard?" Harry said with a smile.

"Excruciating," Artie replied drily.

Though innocuously labeled simply as "Courtroom 10," the Wizengamot Chamber was roughly the size of the Hogwarts great hall but circular in shape. The public viewing gallery where Harry and Artie entered consisted of a single large balcony blocked off by various charms, wards, and spells to prevent observers from interfering in any way with Wizengamot proceedings. Even sounds were blocked, so observers could talk freely without being heard by those below. The viewing gallery overlooked an open area called the Well, which presently housed several tables set up for use by Chief Auror Potter, DMLE Director Bones, and Minister Fudge, along with their various adjutants. Immediately, Harry noticed that while most of those officials seemed tense but otherwise comfortable in their surroundings, one of the Minister's assistants seemed a bit out of place, and she continually looked around the chamber as if she could not quite believe where she had found herself. The woman appeared middle-aged, short, and a bit stoutish, and Harry immediately decided that she bore an unfortunate resemblance to a giant toad. Then, he chastised himself. " _Appearance is no guarantee of character or competence_ ," as Salazar Slytherin himself had noted in his memoirs, and Harry decided that it was unSlytherin of himself to judge the toad-woman on that basis. For all he knew, she might be a very nice lady.

Chief Warlock Albus Dumbledore sat behind an enormous judge's bench situated on a high platform that loomed over the Well opposite the viewing gallery. Harry was strangely pleased to see that his Headmaster had eschewed the plum-colored robes worn by the rest of the Wizengamot in favor of the eccentric garb he wore everyday at school. Today's robes were particularly bold and featured an eclectic mixture of chartreuse and ultramarine. Directly beneath the Chief Warlock's desk but on the same general level were seats for a court reporter (who also acted as a sort of bailiff) and a records keeper. In front of  _them_  but on a lower level was a row of desks allocated to half-dozen or so Ministry officials who held Wizengamot votes by virtue of office. Harry was startled to see Ludo Bagman sitting in that section looking simultaneously confused and bored, but then he remembered that the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports was, inexplicably, among the offices with an ex officio Wizengamot seat. There was a dour and serious man sitting next to him who seemed visibly annoyed at the seating arrangements to judge by the look of disdain he had for Bagman, and Artie soon identified the older man as the very same Bartemius Crouch Sr. that they'd been discussing earlier.

Behind Dumbledore stood a set of double doors from which the Wizengamot members had emerged. Surrounding the Well of the chamber on either side of the Chief Warlock and the Ministry seats were three levels of box seating arranged in concentric arcs. The bottom row was for Order of Merlin recipients. To his surprise, Harry noticed an unusually grim Arthur Weasley in that section, wearing official plum robes far nicer than anything he'd ever seen the man wearing before. The middle row was for the Noble Houses and the top row for Ancient and Noble Houses. Immediately, Harry noticed that there were quite a few empty boxes, especially on the middle tier, and he asked his solicitor about them.

"The Wizarding War hit the Noble Houses particularly hard," Artie said. "Of the fourteen Noble families that have gone extinct as of 1981, only two have been replaced in the years since. Plus, there's House Greengrass which has been elevated to Ancient and Noble status and has left an open spot on the Noble row as a result."

"So why haven't they filled those seats yet?" Harry asked.

"Because they can't come to a consensus on who should have them. Think about it. With all those seats empty, the families who are still represented have more power because they control a greater percentage of the votes that can actually be cast. Filing those empty seats would dilute their power, even more so if they are filed with new families allied with their enemies."

Harry nodded and looked around the visitor's gallery, the large balcony overlooking the well of the chamber across from the Chief Warlock's seat. During this particular session, the visitor's gallery was open only to members of the press, certain non-voting government officials, and family members and agents of seat holders. So Harry was not terribly surprised to see Draco Malfoy ("Or now Drake, maybe?" he wondered) sitting off to once side watching the proceedings. He  _was_  rather surprised to see who Malfoy was sitting with – their Muggleborn classmate Justin Finch-Fletchley!

After a few seconds of consultation, Artie left to speak to some colleagues while Harry made his way to his fellow students, both of whom greeted him warmly.

"Before we go any further, are we using ' _Draco_ ' or ' _Drake_ ' now?" Harry asked.

"Well, we're observing Wizengamot proceedings, so I think Draco would be best in here. My father's still not completely adjusted to my proposed name change."

"Fair enough. Also, Justin, please don't take this the wrong way, but ... how did you get in the door?"

Justin smiled. "Draco's father did a thing."

Harry crooked an eyebrow and then turned to Draco. "You've been teaching him how to speak Slytherin."

"We had a busy summer. He taught me to play cricket. I taught him how to be evasive."

Harry chuckled as he sat down next to his two friends. "So what have I missed?"

"Not much," Justin said. "The roll call is taking forever. We're only up to the M's."

"Speaking of which ..." Draco said.

Below them, the elderly court reporter called out in a thin reedy voice. "The Wizengamot calls Malfoy. Who stands?"

From a box on the top row, Lucius Malfoy stood and answered. "Lucius Lord Malfoy speaks for the Malfoy Seat. Twenty-seven votes."

Justin whistled softly. "Twenty-seven votes. That's the most anyone's had so far by a long shot. No wonder everyone at school looks at you funny, Draco!"

"Hmm," said Harry. "Obviously, I slept through History of Magic on the day that Binns actually explained how our government works. Why does your father have twenty-seven votes, Draco?"

"Binns never covered this, Harry, because it falls under the heading of  _useful_  information. Ancient and Noble Houses get ten votes. Noble Houses get five. Then there is a pool of  _reserved_  votes that go to Order of Merlin holders and certain lucky Ministry officials. In addition to my family's ten votes, Father still holds fealty from the Crabbes, Goyles, and Parkinsons, so that's four from each of them out of the five to which each of those Noble families is entitled. By an amusing technicality, he also holds proxy for the Lestrange Noble seat – at least until all of those nutters finally die off – which is another five. Ten plus five plus three fours equals twenty-seven. QED."

Harry nodded. Naturally, he was aware in general of how Wizengamot votes were allocated. He simply had wondered where the extra five votes from the Lestranges had come from. In fact, his worn copy of  **Hutchinson's Commentary**  had explained the Wizengamot's history in depth. The original Ancient and Noble Houses were descended from the seventeen powerful Roman families who relocated to the British Isles shortly before Rome's fall, and those families spent the next few centuries either warring with one another, interbreeding with one another, or both, until they finally settled their differences and formed the Wizards Council, the de facto magical government of the British Isles from roughly the 7th century until the Norman Conquest. During that time, only the Hogwarts Founders presented any challenge to their informal rule, though it was indeed a powerful challenge that eventually led to a peace treaty between Hogwarts and the Wizards Council that had held thus far for nearly ten centuries. In fact, the heavy losses suffered by the Wizards Council in their futile attempts to conquer Hogwarts left them open to what came next.

In 1066 A.D., William the Conquerer came a-calling, and in the wake of his successful invasion of Britain, another twenty-nine Norman, Breton, and French wizarding families relocated to William's new kingdom and immediately challenged the power of the Wizards Council. The conflict between the powerful and entrenched Roman families and the younger and more numerous invader families continued for decades, long after the Normans themselves had subjugated Britain. Finally, one member of the Wizards Council whose original family name was now lost broke his family's alliance with the other Ancient families and ultimately engineered a peace treaty between the warring magical factions. The result was the Wizengamot, a new magical government in which all of the families held power jointly but with the member families of the old Wizards Council granted additional voting privileges due to seniority. The "betrayer" family was allowed to hold its Ancient and Noble status, but in a final show of petulance, the other Wizards Council members cursed that family's line so that its true name would be lost forever and it would only be known as "House Bad-Faith" – or "House Malfoy" in the language of the Norman conquerors.

As he mentally reviewed that ancient history, Harry was only peripherally aware of the pronouncements from Houses MacMillan and Marchbanks (five votes each) and the lack of one from House MacKinnon (the court reporter called the name three times as a formality, but everyone knew the MacKinnon line had been extinct and unreplaced since 1980). But his head jerked up instantly when House Nott was called upon. Tiberius Nott stood for his House. "Ten votes." Then, Lord Nott turned his head in the direction of Lucius Malfoy and sneered. Harry said nothing, though his eyes narrowed. He wondered if Draco knew that within a few months, the votes of Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson would likely shift from Lucius's control to that of Tiberius. Lord Parkinson himself stood next and claimed ownership of the one vote he had left (the other four still proxied out to Lucius). The names Peverell and Prince were both called out, again as a formality as they too were extinct, though Harry noticed that Justin stiffened slightly when House Prince was called. Finally, it was House Potter's turn.

"Peter Pettigrew, Esquire, Seneschal and Proxy for House Potter, speaks for the Potter Seat. Twenty-three votes." Justin looked at Harry in surprise, and he gave the other boys a summarized account.

"The Potters are Ancient and Noble and so start with ten votes. James, Lily, and Jim  _each_  held an Order of Merlin, which is another three votes. And then, it gets weird because somehow James holds the proxy for House Black which gives him  _another_  ten votes."

James had explained it all to his Heir the previous Christmas. Apparently, Sirius Black, the secret Death Eater who betrayed the Potters to Voldemort, had for some odd reason also provided James Potter with a power of attorney letter granting him complete control over Sirius's legal affairs in the event of the latter's ' _incapacity_.' When Arcturus Black died in 1991, Sirius Black automagically became the new Head of House Black even though he was incarcerated in Azkaban at the time. The Ministry investigated Black's affairs, found the power of attorney, and appointed James Potter as Regent for House Black until Sirius Black's eventual death, at which point either the Black seat would go to his heir if a suitable one could be found or the Black line itself would be deemed extinguished. Harry still found it amazing that James could be so certain that Sirius had betrayed him despite apparently entrusting him with the heart and soul of his family's political power.

"Is there a Black Heir?" Draco asked. "Mother said that if I had gone with her instead of Father, there was a good chance I'd become the next Lord Black, but that's out of the picture so long as I remain a Malfoy."

Harry shrugged. "I think it depends on if Sirius Black prepared a will or not. If there's no will, House Black will probably go extinct because there are no males to carry the family name."

" _Unless, of course,_ " Harry thought to himself, " _Regulus can get past the hurdle of being both a suspected Death Eater and also_ _legally dead_ _._ "

"If he  _did_ leave a will," the boy continued, "well, he's still my Godfather, and I do have Black lineage from Dorea Black-Potter. It's possible that I could be the next Lord Black if he filled out the right paperwork and I was willing to give up my Potter Heir status."

Draco made a face. "It's a good thing I don't hate you nearly as much as I used to." Harry laughed.

"So I guess this makes the Malfoys and Potters far and away the most powerful families in the Wizengamot?" Justin asked.

Draco shook his head with a rueful expression. "Unfortunately no," he said as he pointed back to the court reporter.

"The Wizengamot calls Selwyn," said the elderly wizard. "Who stands?"

From a box on the top row two spots over from Lucius, an attractive and relatively young-looking witch stood to address the Chief Warlock. "Cassilda Selwyn, Seneschal for the Ancient and Noble House of Selwyn, speaks for the Selwyn Seat," she said in gentle dulcet tones. "Thirty-two votes."

"Ancient and Noble, plus  _four_ cadet lines," Draco said to the other two boys with a disdainful sniff. "The Carrows, Warringtons, Travers and Yaxleys are all families that started as offshoots of the Selwyn line before getting elevated to Noble status, but they've all still sworn fealty to the Selwyns, so that's sixteen votes controlled by the main family. On top of that, they have  _five_ Order of Merlin holders plus a Ministry-seat holder from among their five families."

Harry turned his attention to Cassilda Selwyn, who spoke for her family but did not claim the title of Lady Selwyn. Although he had only be peripherally aware of the Selwyns for the past two years, he had not realized just how much power over the Wizengamot the family possessed. He decided now that the Selwyn family deserved more of his attention. In particular, who  _was_  the current Lord or Lady Selwyn, and why weren't they on hand to claim the family seat personally?

* * *

As the roll call proceeded, Wizengamot pages moved among the various seat holders carrying private messages back and forth. Among them was a single piece of folded stationary delivered to Antonius Warrington. The outside of the stationary bore the Selwyn crest: a white shield with Slytherin-green trim and charged with a red rose whose thorns dripped blood. Beneath the shield was the Selwyn family motto:

" _Oderint Dum Metuant._ "

" _Let them hate so long as they fear."_

As casually as possible, Antonius looked around the Wizengamot chamber. Cassilda Selwyn was not looking in his direction. Instead, she seemed focused on reviewing paperwork while completely ignoring both his presence and the pomp and circumstance of the proceedings. With a grimace, he opened up the note carefully, almost as if he were afraid of getting bitten by the paper.

" _Beloved Cousin Antonius,_

 _Grandfather has taken an interest in these proceedings as well as other recent family matters._  
He desires a meeting of the five families tomorrow evening.  
Dinner will begin promptly at eight o'clock followed by a gathering in the ballroom.

 _Of particular interest to our paterfamilias is your son, young Cassius.  
Grandfather has some _ _ **questions**_ _for him regarding the events which_  
led to the expulsion of our dear cousin, Miranda Bonnevie, from Hogwarts.

_I so look forward to dining with you and your family._

_Until then, I remain  
Your Devoted Cousin Cassilda."_

Antonius Warrington stared at the seemingly innocuous note for a long time. So long, in fact, that the court reporter had to call out the name  _Warrington_  twice before he finally noticed and rose from his seat.

" _/cough/_  Antonius Lord Warrington speaks for the Warrington Seat. One vote."

Warrington sat back down stiffly. Then, he blushed slightly in embarrassment as he noticed Corban Yaxley smirking at his discomfort while holding up similar note he had just received himself. Seconds later, Yaxley rose and addressed the court reporter.

"Corban Lord Yaxley speaks for the Yaxley Seat. One vote."

The roll call having been completed, the court reporter turned towards Dumbledore.

"Chief Warlock, 255 votes have been cast to open this Emergency Session of the Wizengamot. The quorum of 220 votes has been met."

"So noted," Dumbledore said. Then, he pulled out his wand and touched it to a small globe on his desk which lit up in response. "As Chief Warlock, I hereby call this Emergency Session to order."

And so, with the preliminaries out of the way, the Wizengamot's business began in earnest.


	9. Reactions & Overreactions p2

**CHAPTER 9: Reactions and Overreactions pt 2.**

_Somewhere, Sometime..._

_The little boy had been lost in the woods for longer than he could remember, and as the night got colder, he'd ended up huddled under a tree sobbing quietly and shivering both from the cold and from fear. For he knew that there was a monster after him, a great and terrible monster that would devour him whole if it caught him. Then, the boy gasped in terror as a demonic howl erupted from farther into the woods. It was some distance away, but closer than the last time he'd heard it just a few minutes before. The boy began to weep piteously. He was alone and cold and the monster would be here soon. Then, as that thought rippled through his terrified mind, the boy heard another sound much closer. He turned and saw that the bushes just a few feet away were rustling as some thing pushed its way through them. And the distant howl that had so frightened the boy was now replaced by a different animal sound. A low, hungry growl._

_The bushes parted, and the boy screamed._

* * *

_**A heavily warded and reinforced chamber deep beneath the Temple of Wisdom in Shamballa  
6:42 a.m. (local time)** _

Remus Lupin ("Brother Chandra" to most of his peers at the Temple) awoke with a loud and painful gasp of air before looking around wildly around to find himself nude and alone in a cold, darkened chamber. He gave a relaxed sigh. All was as it should be. Then, he arose and moved to the locked door, stepping gingerly over the stripped carcass of a yak which had been provided by the monks and upon which his other half had dined heartily in the night. At the door, he closed his eyes and spent several seconds waving his hands in a complicated mudra that would have been beyond either the dexterity or the wisdom of a werewolf. The door clicked open, and Remus stepped through to the lighted antechamber where his clothes and wand were waiting. Naturally, the Alohomora Charm would have been faster and easier, but the risk of leaving his wand where it might be smashed by an anger-crazed werewolf was too great.

The English monk calmly dressed himself and then stepped back into his holding cell to vanish the yak's remains and Scourgify the cell. He made a mental note to spend time meditating in gratitude to the spirit of the animal for its self-sacrifice on behalf of his own mental health. He also made a mental note to gargle as soon as possible to get the taste of yak meat out of his mouth. At this point on his spiritual journey, Remus only ate meat while in the throes of his lycanthropic transformation, and he had grown to otherwise dislike the taste of it, especially when it was still raw and bloody. However, years of study had shown that if the Beast was allowed to slake its hunger for flesh on a sufficient quantity of animal flesh, it was less likely to take out its anger at confinement on its own physical body, and the taste of yak breath was a small price to pay to not wake up half-dead and covered in scratches and claw-marks. Indeed, except for the intense recurring nightmare that came with every transformation just before he woke the next morning, Remus considered his transformations almost consequence free.

From his transformation chamber, Remus climbed the many stairs up to his own rooms, bowing respectfully to all the other monks who crossed his path, all of whom returned the bow with equal respect. Back in his private chambers, Remus took a quick cold shower and dressed in fresh clothes. When he returned to his sitting room, there was a small tray waiting on his table containing fresh fruit, rice, fish broth, and juice, along with a folded copy of the  _Daily Prophet_. Remus smiled. In all his time in Shamballa, he had never actually seen a house elf here, but he knew the Temple had some. Unlike the elves back in Britain, however, the house elves of Shamballa were almost never seen in physical form, preferring to perform their duties silently and invisibly.

The wizard sat at his table, popped a peach slice into his mouth, and opened the paper ... only to spit the fruit out after nearly choking on it.

 **DEATH EATERS ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN!**  
SIRIUS BLACK! BELLATRIX LESTRANGE!  
THE LESTRANGE BROTHERS! AUGUSTUS ROOKWOOD!  
YOU-KNOW-WHO S ENTIRE INNER CIRCLE!  
WHO WILL SAVE US FROM THE DEATH EATER MENACE?

Nearly in shock, Remus tore through the article.

"Sirius ... free," he whispered to himself in a flurry of mixed emotions. And if the Betrayer was free, it was a safe bet he might try to pick up where his master had left off. Remus shook his head. It seemed that Jim's training could no longer be left off until the following summer, just as it seemed that Remus's reunion with young Harry could no longer be delayed. He reached for his wand.

" _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM**_ ," he intoned, and a beautiful silver wolf appeared at his side. "Go to Healer Baskar and the High Lama. Tell each of them that I humbly but urgently request an audience with them both as soon as their schedules allow." The wolf nodded and then disappeared. Remus swiftly moved to a writing desk from which he withdrew some parchment and a quill that hadn't been used in years.

" _To Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster,  
Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry"_

* * *

__**4 August 1993  
The Weasley Burrow  
Noon**

After a busy morning of de-gnoming the garden, the five youngest Weasley children entered the Burrow for lunch. Percy stopped to turn on the Wizarding Wireless just in time for the noon news broadcast.

"Percy," Molly scolded gently. "We don't listen to the Wireless at the dinner table."

"I'm not listening for music, Mum," the boy replied. "There's supposed to be a news update about the Wizengamot hearing."

"Yeah," said Fred with a laugh. "Maybe Dad will get to give a speech."

"Oh, behave, Fred," Molly said with some irritation. "This is a very important meeting, and it's a great honor for your father to be there among the Order of Merlin holders." Before she could say any more, the music on the wireless faded away to be replaced by the dulcet tones of the lunchtime newsreader for the Wizarding Wireless.

" _Good afternoon, witches and wizards. This is Alcmene Doolittle with the twelve o'clock news. It has been four days since the daring jailbreak from Azkaban that has riveted the entire nation. Thus far, the DMLE has no leads on the fugitive Death Eaters, which include Sirius Black, Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, and Augustus Rookwood. Should any of our listeners have any information on the whereabouts of the escapees or the unknown individuals responsible for their escape, we urge you to contact the DMLE at once. For the moment, the DMLE advises that Magical Britain's threat level is rated as 'Red-Severe.'_

_The Wizengamot is currently in recess for lunch and will resume deliberations at two o'clock. This morning's session was brief but contentious. After the Calling of the Rolls and the ceremonial renewal of the Vows of Unity, the reports of the DMLE and the Auror Corps regarding the escape were presented, followed by a brief but spirited question-and-answer period. DMLE Director Amelia Bones began the report by officially clearing Minister Fudge, Chief Auror Potter, and Auror Michael Proudfoot of any involvement in the escape. Immediately thereafter, a point of order was raised by Lord Yaxley as to whether Polyjuice Potion was used and, if so, whether it spoke to a failure of security on the part of the DMLE that hair samples from such illustrious personages could be obtained so easily by enemies of the state._

* * *

_**Approximately one hour earlier...** _

James stiffened slightly at the implied rebuke from Yaxley, a man he was almost certain was an unmarked Death Eater.

"Our preliminary investigation indicates that the three intruders responsible for the breakout maintained their forms after at least two hours and two separate exposures to Thief's Downfall," James said, referring to the report on the table in front of him. "This would seem to exclude the use of Polyjuice Potion. Accordingly, we are proceeding under the assumption that the intruders were a trio of Metamorphmagi."

Up in the gallery, Harry's brow furrowed. While it was to the benefit of Regulus's conspiracy, he was surprised that the DMLE had dismissed the possibility of an improved Polyjuice so completely. Then, he realized that they probably hadn't dismissed it at all but were simply downplaying that possibility to prevent panic. Better the nation think that there were three rogue shapeshifters than a possible army of them that were immune to detection.

"Chief Warlock, I rise to a point of inquiry," said the venerable Griselda Marchbanks. The ancient witch rose stiffly to her feet, as she was recognized by the Chief Warlock. 'I was given to understand, Lord Potter, that there is only one known Metamorphmagus in all of Magical Britain, a young woman currently studying at the Auror Academy. Has she been investigated in connection with these monstrous acts?"

"She has, Lady Marchbanks. At the time of the prison break, she was at home with her parents in Hogsmeade." Then, James took a deep breath as Tiberius Nott rose as well. Up in the gallery, Harry's eyes flashed angrily before his mask of perfect calm slipped back into place.

"I also rise to a point of inquiry, Chief Warlock." There was a slight but noticeable hesitation before Dumbledore recognized the man who then turned his attention to the Chief Auror. "Lord Potter, am I correct in assuming that the young Metamorphmagus of whom you speak is one Nymphadora Tonks, the daughter of Andromeda Tonks ...  _formerly of House Black!_ Specifically, the sister of one of the escapees, the cousin of another, and the sister-in-law of two more?!"

There was a burst of excited whispers from the assembled peers at the invocation of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, whose seat was currently vacant. From the Chief Warlock's desk, Dumbledore banged his gavel for order.

"And furthermore," Nott continued, "am I not also correct in my understanding that this is the same Andromeda Tonks who currently provides sanctuary to the outcast known as Theodore No-Name!"

That announcement led to even louder commentary and even a few gasps until Dumbledore banged his gavel again and with perhaps more force than tradition allowed.

"The point of inquiry is ruled out of order, Lord Nott," he said firmly and with a hint of coldness. "Whatever else he may be, Theodore No-Name is a child of only thirteen years, and his current housing arrangements are not relevant to this discussion. Likewise, Andromeda Tonks has never been accused or even suspected of any criminal acts against the State or the people of Magical Britain, and she is, in fact, a well-regarded member of the Hogsmeade community with a sterling reputation. The Wizengamot does not adjudicate guilt or innocence on the basis of family history, Lord Nott,  _as I'm sure you recall_."

Tiberius's eye twitched slightly. "... I withdraw the point of inquiry, Chief Warlock," he said tersely before sitting back down.

Then, it was Lord MacMillan's turn to be recognized. Harry knew little about the MacMillans. The MacMillan Heir was a Gryffindor who had graduated during Harry's First Year. He vaguely recalled that the younger son, Ernie, was in his year, but the boy was a Hufflepuff, and Harry was sure they'd never spoken for more than a few minutes.

"Chief Warlock, I rise to a point of order. Director Bones, setting aside the Tonks girl, that still leaves at least two other Metamorphmagi involved in the attack on Azkaban. If there are no other known Metamorphmagi in Wizarding Britain, what consideration is the DMLE giving to the possibility of foreign agents being responsible for the attack?"

Director Bones replied. "The DMLE is considering all avenues of investigation, Lord MacMillan. That said, at this time, we cannot exclude the possibility of involvement by foreign wizards and even foreign governments, though we as yet have no idea as to any possible motive for a foreign wizarding government to free Death Eaters from Azkaban prison."

From across the room, Lord Parkinson (Pansy's father) gave a loud snort of laughter. "With all due respect, Director Bones, I think that bespeaks of a lack of imagination on the part of the DMLE."

Director Bones did not rise to the insult, though her expression made her feelings about Parkinson clear. Dumbledore apparently felt the same, as he ruled the comment out of order and chastised Parkinson for speaking without being recognized. Then, to Harry's surprise, Peter Pettigrew stood up from the Potter seat to make his own point of order. Dumbledore glanced down at James for a fraction of a second before recognizing the Potter Seneschal.

"With respect to my learned colleagues," Pettigrew said. "I believe it is premature to speculate wildly on the nature of the threat we face when the investigation is only begun. Certainly, we discredit ourselves and this institution if we frighten the wizarding populace with groundless insinuations about foreign invaders working alongside Death Eaters. With that in mind, perhaps it would be best to move on to another matter. Lord Potter, a point of inquiry: Regardless of how the intruders gained access to Azkaban, whether metamorphmagic or other means, does your investigation have any leads on how they were able to  _escape_ from Azkaban?"

James rose to respond almost as soon as Peter started speaking. After a second, Harry nodded to himself in understanding. He felt quite sure that Peter had asked his question in response to some discreet signal from James in order to divert attention away from something James didn't want to discuss at the moment, most likely something to do with the international implications of the jail break. Idly, he wondered which of the two came up with the stratagem. " _Probably Pettigrew_ ," he thought, " _or maybe even Dumbledore_."

"We do have some leads," said the Chief Auror. "It appears that the intruders have access to some kind of advanced portkey method, one capable of penetrating the anti-portkey wards of Azkaban Prison. Accordingly, we have instituted a crack-down on the illegal manufacture and sale of portkeys by unlicensed distributors."

After that pronouncement – that the (possibly foreign) shapeshifting invaders had access to portkeys seemingly able to slice through some of the most powerful wards ever devised – it took quite a lot of gavel-banging before order was restored.

* * *

_**One hour later ...** _

" _Although much concern was expressed over the possibility of portkeys capable of circumventing anti-portkey wards, Director Bones and Chief Auror Potter were quick to address fears that such portkeys could be used to penetrate wards on public facilities or private homes. As Director Bones noted, the intrusion into Azkaban Prison required a daring use of shapeshifters to penetrate the prison's security and remain undiscovered for several hours. This, she said, strongly implied that it was not possible to simply portkey_ _into_ _a warded area and that the advanced portkeys simply allowed one to, as Lord Potter phrased it, 'blast their way out.'_

_After the reports were submitted and approved, the Wizengamot adjourned for two hours. When the session resumes this afternoon, it will begin deliberations on how to respond to this terrorist event, including a review of Minister Fudge's controversial proposal to reinstitute the Death Eater Laws which had previously been repealed in 1981._

_For the Wizarding Wireless News, I'm Alcmene Doolittle."_

George Weasley stared wide-eyed at the Wizarding Wireless for a long moment before heading quickly to the stairs.

"George, where are you going?" Molly asked. "We're about to start lunch."

The boy looked back at her, and Molly was shocked at his gaunt expression.

"I'm ... not feeling very well, Mum. Think I'll go lie down for a bit if that's okay." Then, without waiting for an answer, he practically ran up the stairs. Concerned, Molly started to follow him when Arthur called her name from the floo. As she went to speak with her husband, Percy looked over to Fred and jerked his head in the direction of the stairs.

A moment later, Fred entered the room he shared with his twin, with Percy close behind.

"Right, George, what's going ... on...?" Fred's voice faded away as he took in George's ashen face. The boy was sitting on his bed and staring forlornly at the floor, and he looked like he was on the verge of either bursting into tears or vomiting. Percy moved past Fred to sit next to George. He put his arm on the frightened boy's shoulder.

"George," he said in a gentle voice. "whatever it is, it'll be okay. Just talk to me."

George finally looked up at his brothers. "It's my fault. The bad guys who staged the prison break – they used  _my_  portkey design to break out. I'm ... I'm a part of all this."

Fred snorted softly. "Pull the other one, Georgie."

"I'm serious!" he exclaimed angrily. "Look, don't you two get it? One of the people who broke into Azkaban was disguised as Auror Proudfoot. The  _same_  Auror Proudfoot who showed up here to collect my portkey notes and then warn all of us not to talk about it with anyone.  _We had a Death Eater in our house! Hell, he was_ _alone with Mum_ _for part of the time!_ Who  _knows_  what he might have done if I hadn't just handed over all my notes like an  _idiot_!"

"So you think there's a connection between Professor Lockhart's research projects and the Azkaban breakout?" Percy asked in a soft voice.

"There's got to be," George replied. And then to his surprise, Percy let out a short, slightly hysterical bark of laughter. "What's so funny?"

Percy shook his head and turned to George. "Well, look on the bright side, George. At least you're not the  _only_  Weasley to have been an unwitting accomplice."

"Eh?" Fred asked in confusion.

Percy looked back and forth between the two twins as he explained.

"The day before Lockhart took a runner from Hogwarts, I turned in my final project for Team Chameleon, the research team working on Polyjuice Potion. My paper was about a theoretical way to extend Polyjuice's duration. It wasn't a particularly safe modification, as it would probably make you quite sick once the transformation wore off. But if the research we all did for Lockhart was used by the people who staged the jailbreak, I reckon I'm as much of an accomplice as you."

He snorted softly. "I guess there goes that Ministry job for sure."

Fred just shook his head. "It's your own fault, both of you. You could have been lazy underachievers like me and just spent the whole year running laps around the castle, but  _noooo!_ "

* * *

_**Florian Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor  
1:00 p.m.** _

"I'm surprised you weren't there this morning," Harry Potter said somewhat mischievously to his twin. "I'd have figured that our parents would want to show you off at Wizengamot sessions whenever possible."

"And normally you would be right," Jim replied somewhat ruefully before taking another drag on his milkshake. "I haven't had to go since I started at Hogwarts since regular sessions happen while we're at school, but before then, I occasionally got dragged to them for special occasions. And if you think an hour or so of just taking roll was boring this morning, imagine having to listen to it when you're  _seven_ and our Mother has stuffed you into formal children's robes. Luckily, Mum and Dad's paranoia about Death Eater followup attacks against the Wizengamot meant I got to sleep in this morning."

The two boys had a table to themselves at Fortescue's while their parents sat at a separate nearby table along with Artie Podmore. As they talked and drank their milkshakes, the two tried to politely ignore the two aurors stationed nearby as their bodyguards.

"So do you actually enjoy all that political stuff?" Jim continued.

"Enjoyment has nothing to do with it," Harry said. "Politics is part of being a Potter. And if we  _don't_  work at it, we'll just be ceding more power to the bad guys."

"Hey, I thought I was supposed to fight the bad guys while you did the  _boring stuff_ ," Jim said, recalling their very first conversation on the day the Potters collected Harry from Privet Drive.

Harry laughed. That conversation seemed so long ago. He'd been so ready to hate Jim, and for a while, Jim seemed eager to earn his hatred. He was glad they seemed to have gotten past all their prior hostility. Of course, he still wasn't ready to forgive James and Lily by any means, and certainly not to the point of giving them the power to interfere with his life again. But if James and Artie could work out an arrangement to guarantee Harry's status, safety, and independence, maybe ...

"We're both Potters, Jim. I think we'll both end up fighting the bad guys in our own different ways." He lifted up his own milkshake. "To fighting the bad guys," he said as a toast. Jim chuckled and raised his own glass to clink against Harry's.

"And speaking of bad guys, what do you think about the jail break?" Jim asked.

Harry shrugged and then launched into the answer he'd prepared before the jail break had even happened. "Honestly, I'm trying not to think about it. I'm confident that the aurors will get the escapees caught and locked up. And if not, it's because the escapees are already out of Britain, which means they won't be any immediate threat to us anyway. I'm taking too many classes this year to spend any spare time worrying about former Death Eaters who are probably too emaciated and insane to be a threat to anyone."

"Yeah, but if Voldemort is summoning his followers..." Both boys took a second to smirk at the horrified gasps from their bodyguards who were apparently still to afraid to say the Dark Lord's name.

"Then we'll deal with it when the time comes. But you and I are students. It's not our job to obsess over what Voldemort" /gasp!/ "might be doing. If it comes to that, you'll take him down and I'll be right there with you. But for the time being, I'm more worried about Ancient Runes and Arithmancy."

Jim shuddered. "Brrrr. I think I'd rather fight Death Eaters."

"What are you taking for electives?"

"Divination and Care of Magical Creatures. Easy Outstandings."

Harry snorted. "Well, I'll see you in CoMC, but Divination? Just for an easy O?"

"Not  _just_  for an easy O," Jim replied. "I  _am_  the subject of a True Prophecy, if you'll recall. I figure maybe it would be a good idea for me to learn a bit about how those things work."

"And also, it's an easy O."

"Yes, and also it's an easy O."

The twins both laughed.

* * *

"So you think there's a chance of finally getting all of this resolved?" James asked hopefully.

Artie hesitated. His client had authorized him to discuss possibly resolving the conflict between Harry and his family, but the solicitor was conflicted. On one hand, he thought it would be good for Harry to develop a positive relationship with his parents if it be feasible. On the other, he was not yet persuaded that James and Lily Potter would do right by their son and Heir. He had finally figured out Lily's position. She did care for Harry, but she felt certain that his life would be in continual danger if he stayed close to Jim. That much was clear from how she continually looked over at the table where the boys sat together chatting and eating ice cream, as if she feared that Death Eaters would burst in at any second to claim both boys despite the presence of two plain-clothes aurors just one table away. Her desire for reconciliation was tempered by her barely concealed wish to relocate Harry to the Antipodes to be instructed by trusted tutors in a bunker protected by the Fidelius Charm, even if that meant he never saw the rest of his family again.

James was harder to figure out. At first, back during Harry's first year, Artie had assumed that Lord Potter was simply biased in favor of the Boy-Who-Lived and also hopelessly prejudiced against Slytherins. Now, though, he was certain that James's motivations were more complicated, but Artie still couldn't begin to fathom why he would be so upset at having an Heir as formidable as Harry no matter what House he was in.

"I certainly hope so, Lord Potter," he finally said. "But at a minimum, it would be contingent on Harry feeling assured that his Heir status won't be compromised at any point."

"Why is he so afraid of that?" James asked.

Artie grimaced. "Lord Porter ... Harry is aware of the fact that you tried to disinherit him back in 1982."

Lily's head jerked around, and she glared at James in reproachful surprise. "James!"

"It's not like that, Lily. This was years and years ago, right after we sent Harry away." He turned to Artie. "At the time, everyone assured us that Harry was a squib, but he would still be the legal Heir until he was officially identified as such, and that wouldn't have happened until he was eleven. At the time, the war was still just winding down, and I was a young patrol auror, a very hazardous job. If I had died, House Potter would have needed a regent until Harry either showed magic or failed to get a Hogwarts letter. And I'm sorry, Lily, but I don't think the Wizengamot would have approved a Muggleborn regent for an Ancient and Noble House, and Merlin only knows who they'd have a appointed in your place. In fact, at the time, I think my closest Pureblood relative was  _Narcissa Black-Malfoy_! But because Jim had already shown powerful magic, if he were the Heir when I died, Peter could have gotten him Lord Conditional status, and then you  _could_  have held his regency no matter what any of the Purebloods thought about it."

He sighed heavily. "And anyway, I never even got past the initial stages before Peter and I concluded that we couldn't take away Harry's Heir status without revealing his existence and where he was staying to the general public, thereby endangering his life. At that point, I dropped the idea completely."

"I am sympathetic to the situation you were in at the time, Lord Potter," Artie said. "But you must understand how all this looks to the boy. He has every reason to be distrustful to your intentions towards him. And if you truly want a reconciliation, you're going to have to give him assurances. Assurances that, according to my prior conversations with Mr. Pettigrew, you have not been inclined to make."

"Peter has a tendency to be ... overprotective where Jim is concerned," Lily said diplomatically. "This is one of those areas where maybe there's a conflict between his role as Seneschal and his roll as Jim's godfather. That's why I ...  _we_  wanted to talk to you for once without his input."

Artie absorbed that information while idly stirring his now melted ice cream. " _Interesting. So Mrs. Potter is concerned that Pettigrew's fondness for Jim is clouding his judgment where Harry is concerned."_ Then, he frowned at his ice cream.

"You know, I can honestly say that I've never held a negotiation at an ice cream parlor before. It's oddly discomfiting. I've had a few in the private dining rooms at Summerisle's but never at Fortescue's."

James laughed. "Lily hates Summerisles for some reason. I've tried to get her to try it, but she refuses to set foot inside."

Lily stiffened. "I've tried it, James. It's just, well, I had an unpleasant dining experience there once, and I don't care to be reminded of it."

But then, despite herself, Lily looked across Diagon Alley towards the famous wizarding restaurant and frowned. It had  _indeed_  been a very unpleasant dining experience.

* * *

_**Summerisles  
25 July 1976** _

_The young Muggleborn girl sat nervously at her table waiting for her "luncheon companion." Although she was in her best dress, she was acutely aware of how her Muggle attire made her stick out against the wealthy magicals in the restaurant in their fine robes and elaborate pointy hats. None of them appeared to pay her any mind, but she assumed at least some of them were whispering "Mudblood" under their breath. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a figure moved past her and slid into the chair opposite._

" _I do apologize for my tardiness, my dear," the other woman said. "But thank you so much for coming. I've been looking forward to meeting with you."_

_Lily tried to smile but it faltered on her lips. "Your invitation was most ... insistent, your Ladyship. Not to be rude, but_ _why_ _exactly have you been looking forward to meeting me?" As if the girl didn't already have a general idea. Something to do with the Toe-Rag._

" _Please, Lily," said Lady Potter almost earnestly. "Call me Dorea. After all, I'm hopeful that you and I will become great friends."_

* * *

_**The Present ...** _

"But enough about all this boring ' _escaped Death Eater_ ' stuff," Harry said, diverting the topic. "Have you seen the new Firebolt yet?"

"Not yet. I tried to get Mum to take me by Quality Quidditch Supplies on the way here, but she wouldn't go for it. There was a big crowd around the window gawking at it, and she was worried about safety." Jim frowned. "I think there's going to be a lot of that going on this year.  _No, Jim, you can't do that._ _Safety!_  I mean, they haven't even decided if I can leave Hogwarts for Hogsmeade weekends this year. Will you be able to?"

Harry grimaced. "Don't know yet. It depends on Lily and James. The injunction against them forbids them from ' _interfering with my education and living arrangements_ ," but it's a Hogwarts policy that you have to have a permission slip signed by a parent or guardian to visit Hogsmeade. Then again, other than Zonko's and the Quidditch supply store, there's not really that much to Hogsmeade, or so I'm told. Blaise Zabini describes it as ' _a magical hick-town_ ' and ' _Branson, Missouri for wizards_.'"

Jim furrowed his brow. "I don't know what that means."

Harry coughed. "Well, to be honest, neither do I, but it sure sounds depressing."

* * *

"Well, I do think we've made some progress today," Artie said. "I don't think we're quite ready for Harry to move back to Potter Manor for good nor even ready to dissolve the injunction. But I believe that I see the beginnings of a possible resolution of the issues between you two and your son. Perhaps we could meet up again for another such informal meeting this fall. At the Three Broomsticks during a Hogsmeade weekend, perhaps?"

"Well, in light of everything that's happened," Lily replied, "we haven't actually decided whether to sign either of the boy's permission slips yet..."

"Actually, Lily-Flower, I've been giving it some thought," James interrupted. Something in his voice caught Lily's attention, and she stared at him as he continued. "There will be a heightened security presence in Hogsmeade this year. And we can both make it a point to be at all the Hogsmeade weekends to act as chaperones. I really don't see why we shouldn't allow the boys to enjoy the Hogsmeade experience, do you?"

Lily crooked an eyebrow. They had discussed the matter just the night before, and it had been James who'd voiced the loudest objections, objections he now seemed to have abandoned. James tried unsuccessfully to stand up to his wife's gaze before turning away and coughing softly with an oddly embarrassed look on his face. Lily said nothing but simply studied her husband's face while looking for his usual tells, most of which now seemed to say " _there's something stupid I've done that I'm ashamed to tell you about_."

* * *

_**One hour earlier, just as the morning's Wizengamot session ended...** _

_"Ah, James," said Cornelius Fudge in a surprisingly upbeat voice. "Well done so far, I think. The morning session went as well as it possibly could have."_

_Potter agreed. "Yes, a lot of the peers are frightened, but they're not panicking yet."_

_"Hopefully, that attitude will continue this afternoon once we're discussing solutions instead of just defining the problem." He turned and looked up towards the Gallery. "I say, is that Jim sitting with Draco Malfoy. I hadn't thought them likely to form a friendship."_

_James followed the Minister's gaze and frowned. "That's my other son, Harry. He's in Slyltherin."_

_"Ah, of course. So where is young Jim? I'd hoped to speak with him and reassure him that we were doing all we could for his defense."_

_"He's at home, right now. Lily and I wanted to see how the new security arrangements were working out before we let him come to the Ministry."_

_"A sensible precaution, I suppose. Here in the heart of downtown London, the Ministry's security is still ... questionable. Still, perhaps I'll get to see him at Hogsmeade this year?"_

_James hesitated as he wondered why the Minister of Magic was so eager to see Jim. Then, he realized – Fudge was more interested in being seen with Jim than in just seeing him._

_"To be honest, Cornelius, Lily and I haven't decided yet about that."_

_Cornelius leaned in closer to Potter. "James," he said in a softer but more urgent voice. "It is very important that we do everything we can to prevent public panic at this moment. Most of the nation looks up to Jim as an icon. I promise that we'll provide whatever security is needed, but if Jim is afraid to go to Hogsmeade, his peers will be too afraid as well, and that fear will only spread." He took a step closer. "These times call for a firm and resolute response, don't you agree, Chief Auror?"_

_James couldn't help but notice the subtle emphasis Fudge placed on the title of "Chief Auror," a position to which he'd risen at an impossibly young age thanks to Fudge's patronage. And also a position in which he served at the pleasure of the Minister._

_"You raise valid points, Minister Fudge. I will certainly take them under consideration." James said diplomatically._

_"See that you do, Chief Auror. I'm sure you'll come to the right decision." With that, Fudge warmly squeezed James's shoulder before turning away to talk to some other officials._

_James exhaled slowly as he considered his boss's words. And for the first time since accepting his position, he noticed the sensation of chains constricting all around him._

* * *

_**A supply closet on the Third Floor of the Ministry of Magic  
1:30 p.m.** _

Rita Skeeter was one of the most famous and notorious gossip columnists of her time, with an unique image known to every wizard and witch in Britain who had ever set foot in a bookstore or perused the gossip pages of the  _Daily Prophet_. With her platinum blonde hair, stylish (if somewhat overapplied) makeup, ultra-chic clothes from the best shops, and, of course, her famous jewel-encrusted spectacles, practically everyone knew what Rita Skeeter looked like.

What few people knew, however, was that "Rita Skeeter" was just a pen name.

Every good reporter knows that there are times to make an impression and times that call for discretion. And when Rita wanted to be discreet (well, a discreet  _human_ , anyway), she simply changed her clothes, scrubbed off her make-up, ditched the spectacles (which were purely for show anyway), and cancelled the spell that turned her normal mousy-brown hair into platinum blonde curls. Rita Skeeter disappeared, and bland unassuming Margarite Scarabee (Ravenclaw, Class of 1978) took her place. It wasn't that often, because Margarite Scarabee  _loved_  being Rita Skeeter, but unfortunately, some of her contacts – in fact, most of her  _better_  contacts – preferred not to meet with her when she wore such an infamous mask. Indeed, her  _very best_ contact was quite adamant about the matter.

Which explained how the plainly-dressed and utterly forgettable Margarite Scarabee found herself in a storage closet on the third floor of the Ministry of Magic, eating scones and drinking warmish tea with Eleanor Burke, personal secretary to Chief Auror James Potter.

"So they really don't have any clue who's responsible?" Margarite asked. She did not take notes, as Eleanor was insistent that there be no easily verifiable record of their conversations, a sensible precaution in light of the quality of secrets the old witch regularly provided.

"Not a clue," Eleanor said. "The blackboard in Potter's conference room has twenty-seven names of suspects on it, all of them completely speculative." The old witch reached into a pocket and produced a parchment upon which the twenty-seven suspects were written in block printing that left neither a magical signature nor a recognizable handwriting that could be traced to her. "Of course, I've got my own theories, but Chief Potter hasn't asked me for anything more than to fetch the tea."

"Who do you think was behind it?"

Eleanor took a sip of tea. "I have no proof or anything, but I'm leaning towards Tiberius Nott."

Margaret was surprised. "Why him?"

"You recall last summer when someone sent the Boy-Who-Lived a cursed choo-choo train for his birthday that nearly killed him?" The reporter nodded. "That train was one of Erasmus Wilkes' little projects, which means that someone has taken an interest in the Toymaker's works. And by an interesting coincidence, Vera Tessmacher over in records told me that Lord Nott has quietly filed a sealed marriage contract with Wilkes' only surviving family, his daughter ... Amelia or Amanthia or something like that. There's got to be some connection there, and anyway, to take the extreme step of marrying someone so young, he must think that doing so will give him power over the Wilkes estate. I'll wager he knows where a fortune in galleons is hidden. Maybe even a mega-fortune in purified orichalcum, plus Merlin knows what sort of dark objects. Wilkes was known for that, and if Nott is after it, he may have believed that You-Know-Who's inner circle had useful information. Maybe it's because I'm Slytherin, but I can't imagine any reason to risk breaking into Azkaban unless there's a lot of money involved."

"How old is the Wilkes girl?"

"Oh, twelve or so, I should think."

Margarite nearly choked on her tea. " _Twelve_?! That's obscene! How is that remotely legal?!"

Eleanor shrugged diffidently. "He can officially marry her at that age and thereby gain legal authority over her affairs and whatever is left of the Wilkes estate, which is what I assume he's after." Then, she noticed Margarite's horrified expression. "Oh don't be so squeamish, dear. Arranged marriages, even with startling age differences, have a storied history in the wizarding world. We live for so long that age gaps of twenty or thirty years used to be perfectly normal before all the Mudbloods started whinging about civil rights for minors and other nonsense. So long as he waits until the girl is older to consummate the marriage, assuming he even wants to, I see nothing wrong with Tiberius Nott taking a young girl under his sheltering wing."

Margarita said nothing. Given what she knew of Tiberius " _I swear I was under the Imperius_ " Nott, she thought there were all sorts of things wrong with him sheltering a young girl under his wing. She resolved to look into the proposed Nott-Wilkes nuptials to see if there might be a story to be made out of that sordid affair, one that was both profitable to pursue and not likely to result in her tragic and unlamented demise. Death Eaters got so touchy when one questioned their moral character, after all. For the same reason, she ignored Eleanor Burke's overt bigotry. To be honest, whether she was Rita Skeeter or Margarite Scarabee, she sometimes felt that she preferred to deal with blood purists and other bigots. There was much less chance of her actually developing feelings of friendship with her contacts that might complicate things.

"Dumbledore shut Nott down at one point, as I recall," she said. "Some comment about how we shouldn't judge someone by their relatives that really struck home."

Eleanor nodded sagely. "Nott's father was a Grindelwald supporter. He had enough money and influence to cover it up, but it was an open secret back in the 40's. If the elder Nott had been anything less than Lord of an Ancient and Noble House, he'd have died in Azkaban. But then, the Notts have always been notoriously vile going back generations. They were very into Muggle-hunting back when it was legal. If the little No-Name boy had any sense, he'd have left the country already and counted himself lucky to be free of that shabby lot."

Rita absorbed that. She'd also wondered if there was a story to be had in the tale of Theo No-Name. And if so, was the boy a hero, a victim, or a villain? " _Best hold off on that_ ," she thought to herself, " _until I find out exactly how that Ultimate Sanction nonsense affects the majority of my readers_."

"Okay, that's enough about the Notts," she said. "What can you tell me about Fudge's new Undersecretary?"

"Not much beyond her job description and portfolio. She's Fudge's new advisor on matters pertaining to the Ministry's magical treaty obligations in general and on Hogwarts in particular. Apparently, Cornelius's admiration for Dumbles has begun to cool lately. But I don't know much about the woman in particular, which I find personally vexing, but it appears to be because she's spent the last fifteen years floundering in obscurity rather than actual discretion on her part. If you want me to, I'll make inquiries. Naturally, gossip and innuendo cost extra."

"Of course," the reporter said as she pulled a small bag of galleons from her robe and handed it over to her informant. "I think I'm familiar with your rates by now."


	10. Reactions & Overreactions p3

**CHAPTER 10: Reactions and Overreactions pt 3.**

_**5 August 1993  
From the front page of the Daily Prophet** _

__**DEMENTORS UNLEASHED!**  
FUDGE UNVEILS CONTROVERSIAL NEW PLAN!  
WILL USE DEMENTORS TO GUARD HOGWARTS AGAINST  
DEATH EATER MENACE!

_**by Rita Skeeter** _

_As astute readers of the Prophet assuredly know, yesterday saw the Wizengamot in Emergency Session for the first since the fall of You-Know-Who, and what an historic day it was. After the morning session's Roll Call and Unity Vows, followed by the Chief Auror's report, deliberations resumed in the afternoon with Minister Cornelius Fudge's controversial proposal to reinstitute the so-called Death Eater Laws, a proposal that was soundly defeated by the Wizengamot. Instead, the peerage, consistent with their prior rulings in times of civil unrest, invoked the Praetor Maximus Clause of the Wizengamot Charter, a rarely-used clause which grants the Minister of Magic unfettered authority to deal with this specific crisis so long as his actions and commands do not violate any rights enumerated under the ICW Charter of Wizarding Rights, do not contravene any rights guaranteed to the peerage under the Wizengamot Charter, and do not extend to any matters unrelated to the Azkaban Crisis. The motion for Praetor Maximus was made by Peter Pettigrew on behalf of House Potter and seconded by Elphias Doge on behalf of House Doge. The vote passed by a close margin of 125 to 123 with seven abstentions._

_Having effectively placed the burden of addressing the Azkaban Crisis solely on Minister Fudge's shoulders, the Emergency Session was brought to a close soon after. But it was not until the Minister stepped out into the Atrium to address reporters that the true fireworks started. For it was there that the Minister announced that his first act under Praetor Maximus was to_ _**summon a contingent of Dementors from Azkaban itself** _ _to pursue, recapture, and Kiss the escapees! Even more shockingly, the Minister stated that the bulk of this cohort would be stationed at Hogwarts to help defend it against any Death Eater attacks. Minister Fudge's announcement sent a frisson of terror through those in attendance, but it soon became clear that such a course of action was completely within his extraordinary Praetor Maximus powers. This reporter hopes that our Minister knows what he's doing, for while he now holds unprecedented executive power, it is not an authority that Dementors are any more likely to respect than the Death Eaters they now pursue._

* * *

_**4 August 1993  
Ten minutes after the conclusion of the Minister's press conference.** _

Cornelius Fudge entered his office and deposited his bowler hat and overcoat onto a hatstand before taking his seat. Then, he pulled open a drawer and removed a flask from which he took a quick shot of firewhiskey to fortify his nerves. There was a knock at the door.

"Enter," he said wearily as he put the flask away. Dolores Umbridge came in bearing a worried expression. She too had changed out of her plum Wizengamot robes and into one of the reserved and sensible tweed outfits he'd come to associate with her.

"Bones and Potter are on their way here. Neither of them look happy."

"I hardly expected them to, Dolores. James has two sons and a wife at Hogwarts while Amelia has her niece and ward there. And honestly, I imagine I rather blindsided James with my announcement. I told him nothing about Dementors when I asked him to have his man make the motion for Praetor Maximus."

The Undersecretary nodded and then hesitated before speaking. "Minister, you hired me as Undersecretary to advise you about the details of the Ministry's treaty obligations. Are you ... open to advice in other areas?"

He studied the woman for a moment. "Yes, if offered in good faith, I suppose."

She took a deep breath. "Then ... be honest with them. Swear them to secrecy if you must – and I understand why you feel you might need to – but you  _need_  them to be publicly on your side in this matter. If they both have family at Hogwarts, they will never support you in this if they don't know the true reasons for your decision. And even your emergency powers can't protect you from a no confidence vote if led by the two most influential members of your own administration."

Fudge made a sour expression but then nodded in agreement. Seconds later, there was another knock on the door. Fudge's secretary came in to announce that Potter and Bones had arrived, but the two angry officials brushed past her into the office.

"Dementors?! At Hogwarts?!" James spluttered. "Have you gone mad, Cornelius?!"

"I'd like an explanation as well, Minister," said Amelia Bones just as angrily. "This seems incredibly reckless!"

The Minister dismissed his receptionist, activating the room's privacy charms as soon as she'd closed the door. "All of you have a seat. Dolores, please stay. I may need your input to answer any specific questions they may have."

With varying degrees of reluctance, the three sat down across the desk from Fudge, who took a deep breath before he began.

"None of this leaves this room. I have too much respect for you both to insist on a vow of secrecy, but if anything I'm about to say makes it into the Prophet, I promise I will do my very best to end your political careers. The official story is that we are making use of Dementors because their innate magical senses can allow them to detect the magical auras of the escapees at some distance, which makes them uniquely qualified to act as hunters. That story has the benefit of being true as far as it goes. We are also stationing Dementors around Hogwarts – not on the grounds, mind you, but at the periphery of the wards and over the Forbidden Forest – in order to demonstrate our commitment to protecting the next generation of wizards and witches from the Death Eater threat."

He paused and took an even deeper breath before continuing. "All of that is ... a diversion from the real truth:  _We don't actually have any choice in the matter._  Under the Treaty of Azkaban, the Dementors  _have the right_  to pursue the escapees. I was able to work out an agreement with, well, the one that seems to be their leader if they even have such a thing. I persuaded them that the escapees could be recovered more quickly and efficiently if they did as we asked by placing small groups of Dementors under the authority of aurors assigned to the national search but with the bulk of the Dementors confined to Hogwarts. I also managed to convince them that the escapees were likely to target Hogwarts because Jim Potter was there. Nonsense, I know, but they bought it and have agreed to station most of their number over the Forbidden Forest where they can't hurt anyone. Or at least agreed to do so until the end of the school year, so we're a bit pressed for time."

James started to interrupt, but Fudge held up his hand. "But make no mistake, James. If we sought to forbid the Dementors from pursuing the escapees, we would be in breach of the Treaty of Azkaban. And if that happens,  _all_  of the Dementors will be free to leave Azkaban  _en masse_  and hunt whoever and wherever they will. And I cannot risk that, no matter what the cost."

Dolores Umbridge stepped in. "By doing it this way, only a fraction of the Dementors will leave Azkaban for Britain, and most of those will remain stationary over the Forbidden Forest next to Hogwarts. The school has the largest concentration of wizards in Britain who know the Patronus Charm. Most of the faculty members and several of the students do."

"That was the real reason I wanted the Death Eater Laws reinstated – I would have had the authority to conscript every wizard and witch in Britain who can summon a Patronus in the event of a Dementor invasion. Anyway, I discussed stationing the Dementors at Hogwarts with Albus during the afternoon break," Fudge said. "He has agreed to make the Patronus Charm part of the curriculum for all seven years of DADA."

"Albus agrees with you on this?" Amelia asked in shock.

"Grudgingly, yes, but after we showed him the relevant treaty provisions, he did reluctantly agree that this might be the safest solution until the crisis is resolved."

"Still, the Patronus is a very difficult Charm," James said. "How many students do you think can possibly learn it fast enough for it to matter?"

"Apparently, a Second Year mastered it this past spring," said Umbridge, "and so the Headmaster is reevaluating his views on its teachability."

"Uh-huh," he replied sarcastically. "And have  _you mastered_  it?"

"Yes, actually," she replied before pulling out her wand and summoning a silver cat patronus. "I learned it just in time for my DADA NEWT."

James actually did a double-take. " _You_  have a DADA NEWT?!" he said in surprise.

"As a matter of fact, I do, Chief Auror," Umbridge replied somewhat frostily. "It was only a low Acceptable, so not enough for the lofty heights of the Auror Corps, but I do have one."

"We're getting a bit off-topic," Amelia said. "You said that only a limited number of Dementors were coming, with most staying at Hogwarts. How many Dementors are we talking about?"

Fudge licked his lips nervously. "About a hundred or so."

There was dead silence in the room.

"A  _hundred_?" James finally said incredulously. "And that's  _a fraction_  of their total number? How many Dementors  _are_ there at Azkaban?"

Fudge simply nodded to Umbridge, who produced a clipboard containing her notes on that very subject. "After all these centuries, we still have no idea how Dementors reproduce or indeed if they truly do. It seems, in fact, that they simply ...  _spring into existence_  somehow. We  _do_  know that they cannot be killed by any means known to us, though there is speculation that a sufficiently powerful Patronus might be able to do so. Headmaster Dumbledore is likely the only one powerful enough, and he's never been put to that particular test. Anyway, the last attempt at a census was in 1972. It was inconclusive but indicated that the Azkaban population, which seems to include every known Dementor in the world, exceeds 1,000. It is likely quite a bit higher today."

"Merlin," Amelia whispered.

"Oh, the good news gets even better," Fudge said bitterly. "Dolores, kindly explain the Azkaban occupancy requirements."

Umbridge coughed delicately and flipped through her notes, pausing to adjust her glasses. "Pursuant to the treaty, the Ministry is obliged to maintain a prison population within certain agreed upon limits. Relevant to this discussion, we are required to maintain a minimum number of convicts on the Maximum Security level at all times. The rules are somewhat complicated, as a prisoner who is Kissed by a Dementor is deemed by them as remaining a prisoner so long as his or her body is still alive even if it has been removed from the prison. That is why it is against Ministry policy to euthanize former prisoners who have been Kissed and why they are instead placed in a special ward at St. Mungo's and kept alive as long as possible. The longer those soulless husks endure, the longer we have before we are required to find someone else to replace them in Maximum Security."

She paused as if to collect herself before proceeding. "As of July 31st, we are in violation of the Occupancy Clause. Previously, we maintained a cushion of two extra maximum security inmates in case any of them passed away unexpectedly, but with the escape, we are now three below the minimum occupancy. We have a year and a day to cure the violation, either by capturing at least three of the escapees and returning them to Azkaban, by arranging for at least escapees to be Kissed ... or by finding at least three other people who have been convicted of crimes worthy of being sentenced to maximum security. Or, I suppose, some combination of those three options. Otherwise, on 1 August 1994, the treaty will become null and void, and the entire Dementor population will be free to ravage Britain at will."

Potter and Bones stared at the woman with horrified expressions.

"So," said Fudge, "in light of the scope of the disaster facing us, do I have your support?"

* * *

_**Peter Pettigrew's Apartment  
6:40 p.m.** _

Peter stepped out of his floo and threw his coat over a chair angrily without even bothering to shake off the floo powder. Without slowing down, he went straight away to his secret chamber where he retrieved a small silver mirror (one of several grouped together on a shelf) and held it up to the light.

"Greyback! It's Peter! Where are you?" he barked into the mirror. A few seconds later, the notorious werewolf's face appeared in the mirror's image.

"What now, Peter?" Greyback said.

"Another change of plans."

"Another one?!" he scoffed. "I think you should stop calling these things  _plans_ , Pettigrew. At this point, they're barely aspirational goals."

"Very funny," Peter said sarcastically. "The Minister has just announced that a rather large contingent of  _Dementors_  will be coming over from Azkaban to search for their missing prisoners, and some of them will be stationed around Hogsmeade and at Hogwarts itself. So Operation Damsel is a no-go for September 1st. We need to study the situation more and try again later."

Greyback shook his head. "Dementors at Hogwarts. What idiot came up with that plan?"

"The worst kind of idiot, unfortunately – one who now has near-dictatorial authority when it comes to hunting down Death Eaters."

"Right. And we're still completely sure that none of our side was behind the breakout?"

Peter snorted. "Well  _I'm_  not involved, and neither Malfoy nor the Selwyns have a motive I can think of. Other than us, none of the remaining free Death Eaters are remotely competent enough to pull this off. More importantly, if Rookwood was able to do so, he'd have contacted me by now. If Bellatrix was able to, she'd have contacted Narcissa by now, and  _she'd_  have contacted me. And if Sirius has been speaking to someone willing to listen, I'd already have aurors kicking down my door. So I honestly don't know  _who_  is responsible. But I'll tell you one thing – if I can find out who does have our missing compatriots, that moves up immediately to the top of our priority list."

"Rescue?"

"Of Mr. Nemo and Miss Demeanor, certainly. Those two Lestrange idiots? Maybe, if it's not too much trouble. But our number one goal is snipping a loose end I have tolerated for nearly twelve years. We're going to find Sirius Black, and we're going to  _end_  him whatever it takes!"

* * *

_**Longbottom Manor  
7:30 p.m.** _

Regulus stood at the foot of the four-poster bed in a Longbottom guest room and gazed down at his brother's still body. Sirius Black looked dead to the world, and from some technical perspectives, he was. The house elves had cleaned him up and changed him from filthy prisoner's stripes into fresh pajamas, but thanks to the Draught of Living Death, Sirius still looked more like a fresh cadaver than a preternaturally deep sleeper.

At present, Augusta and Harry were downstairs discussing the day's events. Regulus had heard the preliminary reports and was horrified by them. Not even in their most dire contingency plans had he and Lucius considered the possibility of Fudge summoning Dementors to search for the escapees. Madness! All of the Azkaban co-conspirators agreed that it was now essential to move things forward as quickly as possible. Harry's Legilimency instructor, Mr. X, would be arriving in the morning for his job interview, and if he was up to snuff, they'd start interrogating the Death Eaters over the weekend. With any luck, this whole mess would be over in a week's time.

Regulus frowned at his own sentimentality. Intellectually, he realized that it was foolish to start with Sirius now while everything else had gotten complicated. Better, surely, to keep Sirius sedated until the situation with the  _actual_  Death Eaters had been resolved. But Regulus had waited so long for the chance to see his brother again, to apologize for the wrongs committed against him. And who knew what the coming days might bring? Steeling himself, the metamorphmagus looked over at his reflection on a wall mirror. He closed his eyes and then shook his head violently, and the elderly Asian man known only as Kato (Gilderoy Lockhart's faithful manservant) blurred and stretched into Regulus's true visage.

Removing a small vial from inside his pocket, Regulus moved to his brother's side and carefully poured the antidote to the Draught of Living Death down Sirius's thoat. Then, he sat down in a chair and waited. A few seconds later, Sirius gave a small gasp as his body emerged from magical stasis. After a few seconds more, the man's eyes fluttered upon. Slowly, painfully, Sirius Black turned his head, and as he took in the face of his long-lost and supposedly dead sibling, his eyes widened in a mix of wonder and fear.

" _R-R-Reg?_ " he croaked.

"Easy, brother," Regulus said gently. "Don't overexert yourself."

" _Am ... am I dead?_ "

"No," he replied as reassuringly as possible. "Merlin, no, Sirius. You're not dead and neither am I. You are safe."

" _Safe?_ "

"Yes," Regulus said with a smile. "Safe."

It was, perhaps, ironic that Sirius responded to that assurance of safety by transforming into an enormous black dog that snarled and leaped at Regulus, seemingly intent on ripping out his throat. The other wizard let out a startled yelp as the beast hit him squarely on the chest, its momentum knocking Regulus and the chair both over. Then, with another blur of magic, Sirius was suddenly a man again. And a furious man at that, one who was now sitting astride Regulus's chest.

" _MY BROTHER IS DEAD, YOU LYING BASTARD!_ " Sirius screamed as he rained down blows on the other man's head.

A few rooms away, Augusta and Harry paused in their conversation as the sounds of screaming and violence reached them.

"What the hell was that?" Harry asked anxiously.

Augusta produced her wand from one of her sleeves and headed for the hallway. "Oh, I imagine it's just the sound of an overcomplicated Slytherin plan blowing up in our faces. Stay here."

"Lady Augusta!" he objected while producing his own wand.

" _Stay here_ , Harry! You cannot use magic without triggering the Trace and drawing the Ministry's gaze to us!" With that, she ran (with surprising speed for a woman of her years) out of the parlor and in the direction of the commotion, while Harry remained behind frustrated.

Seconds later, she reached the corridor leading to Sirius's bedroom just in time to see the man himself stagger out while holding his brother's wand. As soon as he saw her, Sirius fired off a Stunner but it went wide. Augusta took shelter behind a suit of armor and called out to her attacker.

"Sirius Black! This is Augusta Longbottom! Frank Longbottom's mother! You have nothing to fear from us! Please, let us help you!"

Unfortunately, Sirius's only response were a few more attempted stunners which only missed because he was using an unfamiliar wand.

"Right, then," Augusta said irritably as she touched the suit of armor with her wand. " _ **AVIFORS.**_ " Instantly, the armor was transfigured into a flock of starlings which hurled itself at Sirius and quickly surrounded him. Desperately, he batted at the small birds but was unable to draw a bead on Augusta who quickly advanced. " _ **EXPELLIARMUS!**_ " Instantly, Sirius's stolen wand was sent flying, and he dropped to his knees, putting his hands over his head to ward off the swirling mass of birds. Augusta advanced, her wand pointed at him.

"Stay down, Mr. Black. I do not wish to stun you, but I will if you continue to resist."

Sirius seemed to do as she asked, though he did not look up from his position on the floor. With a slash of her wand, Augusta dispelled the flock of starlings which flew back past her and reformed into the suit of armor from whence it had come. But in her brief instant of distraction, Sirius tensed ... and suddenly was a grim once more. Caught by surprise, Augusta tried to stun the beast, but it moved with alarming speed, knocking her to the ground and causing her to lose her own wand. The great hound bounded past her and down the corridor. For with its keen hearing, the animal could detect the nearby crackle of flames. And in a wizarding home, where there were flames, there was likely a floo connection.

Following the sound, the grim turned straight into the parlor where Harry was waiting. The young Slytherin held his wand up but did not aim it. As Augusta had noted, any use of magic by him under these circumstances would draw an Underage Magic Use warning and possibly even more stringent Ministry attention. The grim growled menacingly and slowly moved towards him.

" _Typical_ ," thought Harry ruefully.  _"Moody and Jim both mentioned that Sirius Black might be an Animagus, but we didn't bother to prepare for that possibility. And of course, he's something big and scary. God forbid that his Animagus form should be a hedgehog or parakeet!_ "

The dog continued its slow advance. Unable to use magic, Harry turned to his second greatest power: his knack for talking his way out of problems. Carefully, he positioned himself between the grim and the floo, while the dog crept forward, growling the whole time. Harry assumed that Sirius was sticking to his animal-form rather switching back to his human shape so as to be better able to dodge a spell. And truth be told, the dog was probably better at dodging attacks than the man. Desperately, Harry tried to think of something to say that would deter Sirius or at least make him hesitate until help arrived. Unfortunately, he didn't actually  _know_  much about the man on any personal level, and so for once, his Legilimency seemed to be of no use... until, in an act of supreme concentration that surprised the boy himself, a memory popped into his head, one from so far back in his childhood that it should have been impossible for him to recall.

* * *

_**A long time ago...** _

_The big man's face looked so different then. His hair was shiny and his beard neat, and there were no lines around the eyes that seemed to twinkle almost as much as Dumbledore's. Then, the big man let out a broad grin, and Harry could hear himself gurgling in delight._

" _Hey there, my little lion," the big man said in a soft voice. "I'm your Uncle Sirius. Yes! Yes, I am! Course I'm not really an uncle, though you can call me that if you wish. I'm something better than an uncle. I'm your_ _godfather_ _! Hello!" He held up a hand and wriggled them down at the baby._

" _That means I'll always be there for you. Always! And look what your godfather has for you on your very first birthday!"_

_The big man reached into his robe and pulled out a stuffed black dog. "This is Padfoot, Harry. Which is also_ _my_ _name, but you can't use that all the time. When we're alone, though, you can call me Padfoot or Uncle Sirius, whichever you like. And Little Padfoot here can stay with you and watch over you whenever I'm not around to remind you about me." He placed the stuffed dog into Harry's arms, and the one-year-old embraced it tightly._

" _Pa-foo," the infant Harry said. Sirius froze, and then his face lit up in delight._

" _Padfoot?" he inquired._

" _Pa-foo," the baby answered._

_Sirius let out an excited "HEE!" before slapping his hand over his mouth and looking around the room to reassure himself that no one else was there._

" _Okay, little lion, while that was undeniably awesome and probably my new Patronus memory, let's not do that in front of your Mum or Dad for a while. James would have an absolute cow if he learned that you'd said 'Padfoot' before 'Da-da' or 'Ma-ma.''_

_Little Harry said nothing else except to giggle softly as he clutched the stuffed dog tighter._

* * *

_**Now...** _

Harry blinked three times in astonishment at the thought of summoning up a perfectly clear memory of something that happened when he was one-year-old. Then, he shook it off as the grim took another step forward.

"Pa-foo," he said. "I mean,  _Padfoot_. That's your other name, right, Uncle Sirius?" The dog froze instantly.

"You said I could call you either when you gave me that stuffed grim for my birthday. Do you remember that day? You told me that you were my godfather and that you'd always be around to protect me and look after me, right? That's why I know you won't hurt me now."

The dog began to whine softly. Harry slowly inched towards it and carefully put his hand out palm-up. The whimpering grim leaned forward, sniffed at his hand, and licked it once. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was Sirius Black once more, a crying distraught Sirius Black who immediately snatched the startled boy up in a tight embrace. A few seconds later, when Augusta Longbottom came into the room with her wand drawn, it was Harry who waved her off, as the weeping man could only hold onto him for dear life while brokenly sobbing over and over again.

" _I'm sorry, Harry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._ "

* * *

_**Five minutes later ...** _

Once he realized by the boy's scent that Harry was indeed his godson, all the fight went out of Sirius Black. He allowed Harry and Augusta to escort him back to his room, and along the way, he apologized to Augusta for knocking her down. He did  _not_  apologize to Regulus when he met up with his younger brother in the hallway despite the mass of bruises on his face and the chipped front tooth. After taking a few potions, Regulus's injuries were soon repaired, but there were no potions or spells on hand to immediately fix the two black eyes his brother had given him. Also, his earlier desire to beg Sirius's forgiveness was strangely muted now. Finally, once back in bed, Sirius spoke to his younger sibling.

"So. You didn't die."

"Obviously not."

"It's a pretty crappy thing to do, letting your family think you're dead."

Regulus shrugged. "If I remember correctly, in our last actual conversation before this one, you reminded me that you had the legal authority to execute Death Eaters and that you wouldn't let whatever weak bonds of affection you had for me stay your hand if we crossed wands."

Sirius nodded. "And did you become a Death Eater?"

Silently, Regulus pulled up his sleeves to reveal the absence of a Dark Mark. "Grandfather wanted me to join so we'd have Blacks in both camps, but he also gave me the means to fake my own death if I changed my mind. A modified Fidelius of some kind, designed to activate when I cleaned out the emergency vault he'd left for me. Anyone who knew Regulus Black would just assume I had died somehow without thinking too much about the details unless someone who knew the truth corrected them. Of course, it's not a true Fidelius, and sufficiently clever or strong-willed people can see through it, so if you want to rat me out to the DMLE and ship me off to Azkaban, the spell won't stop you."

"Good to know. Have you done anything worthy of Azkaban, Little Brother?" Sirius asked in a low voice.

Despite himself, Harry stiffened uncomfortably. " _Do I sound like that when I call Jim 'Little Brother'? That ... hateful?_ "

"Lord Black," Augusta interrupted. "I know you must be under a great strain at the moment, but let me reassure you. Your brother and his allies rescued you from Azkaban despite enormous risks. Whatever issues remain between you and Regulus, I would ask you to set them aside for the moment, for the stakes are higher than you could possibly know."

Sirius appeared to tune out everything except her first words. " _Lord ... Black_?"

"Grandfather died in 1991," Reg said almost blandly. "You've been Lord Black ever since, despite your incarceration."

"Uh-huh," Sirius said dully while absorbing that information. "Okay, I'll ... process that later, I guess. So where's James in all this? I saw him at Azkaban. Wasn't he part of the rescue?"

"That was me, Sirius," Regulus said. "I took James Potter's form. I'm a metamorphmagus."

Sirius barked out a laugh. "Since when?"

"Since my seventh birthday, when my hair grew back overnight after some imbecile lopped it all off as a cruel joke."

"WHAT?!" Harry suddenly exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise.

"Pfff," sneered Sirius. "It wasn't  _that_  mean of a joke." Regulus gave him a foul look while Harry just shook his head.

"No, no. It's just ..." he muttered before turning to Regulus. "We've got too much else to talk about now, but later on, I'd like to hear that story. For ... reasons."

Regulus stared at the boy before finally shrugging. "I'll make a note of it."

"So let me get this straight. You've been a metamorphmagus since you were  _seven_  and concealed it from me this whole time?!" Sirius said in disbelief. Regulus pursed his lips in annoyance. Then, he closed his eyes and concentrated. With soft pop of magic, he suddenly looked like James Potter once more. Sirius's eyes widened in shock.

"And speaking of James Potter," Regulus said, "you will be disappointed to learn that not only was your old partner-in-crime not involved in your liberation, he is still firmly convinced that you are a Death Eater and a spy, as well as the person who betrayed his family to the Dark Lord."

Sirius leaned back against his pillow and shut his eyes tight. "Damn you, Wormtail."

Harry's jaw dropped in surprise at the mention of one of the four Marauders who created his enchanted map, specifically one who by process of elimination was perhaps the last person he'd expect to have betrayed the Potters. Meanwhile, Regulus shook his head violently and reverted to his true form.

"You used that name back at Azkaban. You said that was who really betrayed the Potters. Who is  _Wormtail_?"

Without opening his eyes, Sirius hissed out a name. "Peter Pettigrew."

There was dead silence for a few seconds before Harry, despite himself, barked out a laugh. "Peter Pettigrew is a  _Death Eater_? James Potter's Seneschal, proxy, and personal solicitor? Jim's godfather? He's just been hiding in plain sight for ever a decade? That's ... incredible!"

"Jim?" Sirius inquired.

"My twin brother. You do remember Lily having twins right?"

Sirius rubbed his face for several seconds. "Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, I just never had much to do with him. He was Peter's godson, not mine. I guess I don't have any memories of him that survived..." Then, he shuddered and began to hyperventilate. Augusta rushed forward and unstopped another Calming Draught for him. "Sorry," he said quietly after his anxiety attack had passed.

"It's quite alright, Lord Black," Augusta said. "Perhaps we could move on to memories that are less triggering. What do you remember about your trial? Do you know how you were forced to issue your false confession?"

Sirius stared at her dully. "I never had a trial. I never confessed to anything."

The others looked at one another in confusion. "The trial transcript is still sealed, I think," said Harry. "But it's supposed to run more than fifty pages, most of it you testifying in detail and under Veritaserum about all the innocent people you Imperiused into taking the Dark Mark against their will."

"I. Never. Had. A. Trial." he growled. "I spent about two days in the DMLE lockup begging for a chance to tell my story to someone. Then, an auror came in and stunned me. Next thing I know, I'm in my cell in Azkaban."

Harry sat back in his chair with a thoughtful expression. "So, question one. How did Voldemort loyalists fake a whole trial that was overseen by a respected three-judge panel without the involvement of the defendant?"

"And question two," Regulus added. "How did someone convince James and Lily Potter that Sirius was the Secret Keeper instead of Pettigrew? It can't just be a memory spell. Potter is an auror and, I assume, must have handled a Remembrall in open court as part of every single criminal trial at which he's testified over the last twelve years."

"And question  _three_ ," Sirius said rather archly. "How did Harry get involved in this if James doesn't know the truth? Why are you even here at Longbottom Manor this time of night?"

"Well," Harry said with some embarrassment, "I  _live_  here, during the summers at least. There's some ... legal issues between James and I that stop me from living with the Potters."

"James? The Potters? Do these  _legal issues_  explain why you talk about your family like you're not even related to them?"

"Yes," Harry replied tersely and without elaborating.

"Harry..." Sirius began, but Regulus interrupted.

"Harry's upbringing is not even in the top ten of our to-do list, Sirius. Let's cut to the chase. The Dark Lord's body was destroyed in 1981, but his spirit lingers on, bound to this plane by cursed magical items called ..."

"Horcruxes," Sirius finished. The other three stared at him in shock.

"How the hell did you know that?" Regulus asked.

Sirius gave a throaty chuckle. "Grandfather Arcturus made me study the Codex just like I reckon he did with you after I left the family. Also, Bellatrix spent a lot of time ranting about how the Dark Lord would someday be restored to his former glory. And occasionally singing peppy tunes about the subject. She gave me enough information to guess what he'd done."

Harry looked over to Reg. "Well, I guess we know who has one of them, at least."

Sirius continued. "I could never tell anyone because of Arcturus's oaths... But I can now, which means you three already know about the Codex. Which, in turn, raises the question:  _WHY THE HELL IS MY GODSON MUCKING ABOUT WITH THE ANATHEMA CODEX!"_

After Sirius finished bellowing, he fell back onto his pillow, coughing and wheezing. Augusta muttered a soft expletive and fed him another potion.

"Lord Black, you must control your emotions. You're still very weak from your time in Azkaban and must not overexert yourself!"

"Fine, fine. But for pity's sake, call me Sirius. Lord Black was my grandfather, and I'm not sure I want to follow in his footsteps."

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to, at least for tonight," Regulus said. "The  _reason_  I fled the Death Eaters and faked my own death in the process was that I learned that he'd made a horcrux out of Salazar Slytherin's locket, and I stole it away from him. We've since learned that he made more than one, but the one I recovered has been hidden at Grimmauld Place this whole time. We need you to summon Kreacher and have him bring the locket here."

"Oh no, we most certainly need not!" Augusta interrupted testily. "You will  _not_  summon into this house Walburga Black's house elf that has been trapped in 12 Grimmauld Place for more than a decade with naught by the horcrux of He Who Must Not Be Named for company! Who  _knows_  how deranged that poor elf might be by now. And who knows what powers that locket might bring to bear once it's brought here."

"But Lady Augusta, we  _must_ destroy the locket," Regulus said.

"And so you shall, but there's no reason to compromise the wards of Longbottom Manor to do it." She turned to Sirius and fixed him with a somewhat motherly gaze. "Lord, er, Sirius? If you will but say ' _I, Sirius Black, Lord of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, do hereby grant admittance to 12 Grimmauld Place to my brother Regulus and his allies_ ," that will be sufficient to let Regulus go himself and destroy the locket-horcrux there."

Sirius coughed and then did as Augusta asked.

"Right then," Regulus said. "I'll be off." He turned and strode out of the room without another glance towards Sirius. Harry glanced around at the grown-ups in the room before rising himself.

"Um, excuse me," he said before following Regulus out, ignoring his god-father's calls as he left.

"Regulus! Wait up. You might need me with you."

Regulus stopped and whirled on the boy in surprise and a bit of annoyance. " _Mr. Potter,_ " he said, slipping briefly back into his Lockhart persona, "I am a dueling champion, a ex-Death Eater, a former auror, and the best DADA instructor Hogwarts has had in years. What on earth makes you think I might  _need_ a thirteen-year-old boy to help me in the relatively simple task of retrieving and destroying an item from my own home?"

"Well, as it happens, after you told Mr. Malfoy and me about Slytherin's locket, I looked it up and noticed that the big S-insignia on the front looks like a snake. And since it  _is_ Slytherin's locket, I'd bet good money that a Parselmouth can talk to it and maybe learn about the other horcruxes we don't know about yet."

Regulus opened his mouth to chastise the boy for the silliness of his suggestion, but then, he paused when he realized the suggestion was, in fact, quite sound. Finally, after a few seconds, he reluctantly acquiesced.

"I have three rules, Mr. Potter. One: Once we're in Grimmauld Place, touch nothing except at my direction! Two: If I tell you to do something, you do it instantly and without stopping to ask any stupid questions. And three..." He paused for a moment. "Well, I guess I'll just think up the third rule when we get there. Come along."

* * *

__**12 Grimmauld Place  
Islington, London  
9 p.m.**

About twenty minutes later, Harry and Regulus stood on a lonely street in Islington before a row of town houses that seemed to have once been quite elegant but had since fallen on hard times. From the look of things, most of them were fairly shoddy apartments now. Regulus looked around to make sure they were unobserved. Then, he produced his wand and slashed it in the direction of the houses marked 11 and 13 while whispering " _Toujour Pur_." For a second, Harry thought it odd that there was no Number 12, but then, the other houses slid apart and the missing town house came into view as if it had somehow been squashed between the other two. He looked up at the older wizard in amazement.

"The house is Unplottable, which means it cannot be physically perceived by those not keyed into it, as you and I now are." With that explanation, Regulus started towards their now visible destination with Harry following behind, reshouldering the book bag he carried as he went.

"Why did the Blacks buy a house in a Muggle neighborhood?" he asked. "Weren't your lot all...?

"Violent bigots?" Regulus replied. "There are some things that trump Pureblood disdain for Muggles. One of my ancestors discovered an untapped ley line convergence in this neighborhood back in the 1800's. At the time, Number 12 was just thought by Muggles to be a haunted house, but it was because the ghosts of the Muggles who had died there were being supported by the magic from those ley lines."

"And what are ley lines again?" Harry inquired.

"A good question, and one wizards have been debating for centuries. All we know definitively is that are these invisible, intangible, and largely theoretical lines that criss-cross the whole planet. We can't actually detect the lines themselves, but the places where they connect are magically reactive. That is, if you perform magic where these lines intersect, it's possible to do high level magic more easily than in other locations and also to work spells whose results will last indefinitely. Hogwarts is located at the junction of a large number of ley lines, as is the Ministry of Magic and Diagon Alley, which is why all of those were chosen as locations for those structures. In fact, the British Isles possess an unusual number of such junctions and an extremely unusual number of junctions in which more than two ley lines intersect. That's why our ancestors came here from Rome in the first place. It's also why Magical Britain has influence over the rest of the magical world that's somewhat out of proportion to our population and the relative military and economic strength of the Muggle nation within which we reside. When push comes to shove, we can generate more raw magical power than all but a few of the other wizarding nations"

He continued talking as he paused to disable the remaining wards on the house before casting an Alohomora on the door. "Number 12 Grimmauld Place sits at the intersection of two ley lines that had somehow gone undetected for centuries. My great-great-grandfather found the place, acquired the house from the Muggles who lived here, and diverted the magical energies of the intersecting ley lines into defensive spells and spatial expansion."

"So the place is even bigger on the inside?" Harry asked looking up to the top of the three story building before following Regulus inside.

"Yes. About thirty or so rooms, I should think, including an orangery on the top floor if Mother never got rid of it. Father was the one who always had to have a fresh orange for breakfast. Oh, and watch out for the troll's leg."

"The wha-OOOF!" Harry said as he tripped and fell over what appeared to be the calf and foot of a troll which had been stuffed and used as an umbrella stand.

"Sorry. Should have remembered. The stand is cursed. Anyone who is descended from House Black but who is not at least three generations Pureblood will be confunded to bang their shin on it if they get too near. Mother's way of establishing dominance, I suppose."

"Charming," Harry said sarcastically. He turned to look down the gloomy hall as Regulus summoned a Lumos. Harry still couldn't use his own wand, and he was annoyed that he hadn't thought to bring a torch. Still, even a single Lumos was enough to reveal how dusty and filthy the house was. Suddenly, both of them jumped in fright at the sound of a hysterical voice shrieking in the gloom.

"WHO IS THERE?! IS SOMEONE THERE?! WHO DARES INTRUDE UPON THE SACRED HAVEN OF THE ANCIENT AND NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK! WHO! WHO!"

For a few seconds, Regulus went as white as a sheet. But then, he realized that the screaming was coming from a nearby wall-hanging covered by heavy velvet curtains. Steeling himself, Regulus walked over and pulled back the musty curtains to reveal a beautiful oil painting depicting heavyset older woman sitting on an overstuffed chair. She wore elegant clothes and expensive-looking jewelry, but her hair was disheveled and her eyes looked wild. And when she got a look at Regulus, they got even wilder.

"Hello, Mother," he said quietly.

" _Regulus_ ," she whispered. "You live? How is this possible?!"

"Grandfather arranged it for me," he replied. "He foresaw the possibility that the Dark Lord might be a monster and that a time might come when I would need to flee him for my own safety."

"But ... why didn't you tell us?" she asked in shock.

"Well to be honest, Mother, I suspected that if you knew I was alive, you would give the information to the Death Eaters as a punishment for not living up to your ...  _ideals_."

The woman's face darkened. "And so we  _would have_! You who turned your back on the Dark Lord! And on the Ancient and Noble House of Black! I see now you're no better than your miserable brother Sirius!"

"Thank you, Mother," he said calmly. "That's perhaps the best compliment you've ever paid me."

Then, he gestured with his wand, and the curtains fell back across Walburga's painting, muffling her words but not silencing them. It sounded to Harry as if the woman had begun weeping and wailing behind her curtain. Regulus turned away from the curtains with a stony expression, and Harry followed him further into the house, carefully picking his way past dusty furniture and old cobwebs. Regulus led the boy into a sitting room and cast his Lumos spell again, but instead of lighting his wand, the spell caused various oil lamps and an overhead chandelier to light themselves. Though visibility improved, the additional light somehow only made the decrepit home even more gloomy and sinister.

"So if you don't mind me asking, exactly what  _is_  your relationship with Sirius? I mean, beyond the mere fact that you're brothers. You went to great lengths to rescue him and you just defended him in front of your mother's portrait, but when you're actually with him, you two are at each other's throats."

Regulus sighed. "Honestly, I don't even know myself. I've waited years for the chance to confront Sirius, to admit that he was right and I was wrong, and to beg his forgiveness for my transgressions."

"But?"

"But when I'm actually talking to him, all of the sudden, it all comes back. The hostility we had for each other all through school. His arrogance. His self-righteousness. His vindictiveness. All of it." Regulus rubbed his forehead and then winced from the bruising on his eyes. "Him kicking my arse back at the Manor didn't help, I suppose. Still, there was a reason back at Hogwarts that I made it a project to get you and your brother on better terms. Though I was unsuccessful there, I hope you will take the lessons of Sirius and myself to heart."

"I have. And Jim and I are getting along much better. To be honest, James is the only one I have problem with at the moment, and that's mainly because I still don't understand why he was so hostile before so I don't know how to prevent it happening again."

"So you're no longer seeking revenge against them for abandoning you?"

Harry made a wistful face. "Well, I certainly haven't  _forgotten_  about it, but with everything that's going on with Voldemort and the horcruxes, I just don't feel that I have enough hours in the day for a cruel Slytherinesque revenge. So I'm putting it on the back-burner. We'll see how long that lasts."

"Mm-hmm," Regulus nodded. "By the by, why were you so interested in Sirius lopping off my hair when we were kids?"

Harry hesitated. "When I was seven, my Aunt Petunia got mad because she couldn't do anything with my hair ... so she got some clippers and shaved me down to the scalp. I cried all night because I thought I'd have to go to school nearly bald, but the next day, my hair was right back the way it was. That scared her enough for her to never mess with my hair again."

"Interesting. And you're wondering if you have the potential to be a metamorphmagus?" Harry nodded. "Well, your Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had it, so it definitely runs in your bloodline. If you're interested, we can explore that possibility next summer."

"Next summer? Why not now?"

Regulus laughed. "Because you're about to go back to Hogwarts. Shapeshifting takes years to master. If you start training now, there's a risk you might get stuck in a partial transformation for days or even weeks. When I was eight, I once spent four whole days with purple hair, blue skin, and cat-eyes before I could change myself back to normal. And if you get caught as a Metamorphmagus while at Hogwarts, you're on the Conscription List for sure."

"Good point," said Harry as he resigned himself to waiting a year to explore this possible gift.

"Also, spend some time talking to Sirius now that we know he's an Animagus. As your godfather, he may offer to teach you that gift instead. Being an Animagus and a Metamorphmagus are mutually exclusive. It is impossible for a single person to develop both gifts."

Harry nodded. At the moment, he was far more interested in metamorphmagic, in part because he suspected Jim was studying animagic and he had little interest in following in his brother's footsteps. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask Sirius a few questions.

"So where's your house elf?" he asked, changing the subject.

Regulus turned pensive. "I don't know. I'd have thought he'd have shown up by now since we're the first people to come into this house since Mother died." He cleared his throat. "Kreacher!"

There was a loud, angry pop that startled them both, and suddenly there was an aged and decrepit elf standing before them . For a second, he looked up at Regulus with wonder and joy, but then his eyes narrowed.

"Master Regulus ... lives?" he said slowly.

"Yes, Kreacher," Regulus said as he studied his former elf with a sad expression.

"Kreacher grieved for Master Regulus," the elf said in a rasping tone. "Kreacher  _wept_  for Master Regulus."

"Kreacher, I'm ... truly sorry to have caused you pain, and I promise I'll make it up to you. But, well, I'm a bit pressed for time, I'm afraid. Could you please bring me the locket that I entrusted to you all those years ago?"

Kreacher stared at Regulus with a disturbingly vengeful expression before popping away.

"He doesn't seem to like you very much," Harry said nervously.

"No, he's obviously more upset than I'd realized because of my deception," Regulus said somewhat guiltily. "He basically raised me, you know."

"Did he?" Harry replied without taking his eyes off the spot Kreacher had just departed. "Well, I'm sure he was a splendid caregiver."

Seconds later, Kreacher returned with the locket in his hands. With exaggerated care, he placed the locket on the floor in front of the two wizards. Then, he sat back on his haunches and looked up at Regulus with an intense gleam in his eye. Harry and Regulus looked back and forth between Kreacher, the locket, and each other.

"Thank you, Kreacher, for your ... devoted service," Regulus finally said. "You can, um, return to your other duties now." Kreacher did not move. Then, Regulus looked around the room and ran his fingers across a nearby credenza that was caked in dust. He rubbed his fingers together to get rid of the grime while looking expectantly at the house elf. Finally, with a low grumble, Kreacher popped away.

"Oh, yeah," Harry said. "A right Mary Poppins, that one."

"Quiet, you. Let's just get this over with."

Harry nodded and carefully moved around the locket so that it was between the two of them. He leaned over to study the snake insignia, took a breath, and then hissed at it.

" _Hello? Can you sssspeak with me?"_

The locket twitched slightly, and then the S-shaped serpent insignia on the cover slid around in a figure-eight pattern before finally coiling in the center. Then, the tiny snake's head lifted itself up and addressed Harry directly.

" _Ssspeaker. What isss thy name?_ " Regulus suppressed a shudder. Despite the snake's tiny size, its unearthly hissing seemed to echo through the darkened house.

" _Harry_ ," the boy hissed in reply. " _And what should I call you?_ "

" _Great Sssalazar Ssslytherin never sssaw fit to name me. Call me ... Locket._ "

" _Very well, Locket. What can you tell me of the one who posssssesssed you lassst."_

The tiny snake hissed angrily which, ironically under the circumstances, Harry thought was a good sign.

" _Powerful isss that one, Little Sssspeaker. Ssssteeped in the darkesst artssss. Even though he issss far away, he leachesss Locket's power for hissss own."_

" _What can you tell me of other objectsss like yoursssself that he hasss corrupted?"_

The locket-snake hissed painfully. " _Arggh. That part of the Dark One inssside me awakenssss. It growsss angry at Locket'sss indissscretion. Quickly! Locket only knowsss of one other sssuch vesssel. Yearsss ago, Locket passsed from thossse of the blood to one not of the blood. A vacuoussss cow of the line of Hufflepuff. The Dark One took her family'sss greatessst treasssure when he claimed thisss one. Now, Locket begsss you. Sssstrike down the perversssion and end Locket'sss ssssuffering!"_

With one last angry hiss, the snake sank down into the face of the locket which now seem pulse with an unnatural power. Harry looked up at Regulus and nodded. From his book bag, the boy pulled out two pairs of dragonhide gloves and handed one pair over to Regulus before donning the other himself. Next, he pulled a small wooden box out of the bag. Inside were two glistening basilisk fangs which he carefully extracted, again passing one to Regulus who took it with exquisite care before kneeling a few feet from the horcrux.

"You tell it to open, Harry, and I'll strike first. Stand well back and do nothing unless ... well, unless the bloody thing kills me or something. Then, I suppose you're on your own."

Harry nodded and then hissed at the locket. " _Open._ "

There was a soft click and the locket opened. Regulus moved to strike, but before he could, a shockwave of magical force exploded out of the locket knocking both of them to the ground and causing Harry to drop his basilisk fang. Then, an impenetrable black mist erupted from the locket all the way up to the ceiling, accompanied by a hideous  _ **SKREETCH**_ that seemed to echo in both their minds despite their respective skills at Occlumency. Harry desperately looked around for his dropped fang while trying to buttress his mental defenses, but despite himself, he glanced up at the mist and saw that some large figure seemed to be moving within it. The mist parted and Harry was left paralyzed with horror.

Looming over him was the shambling, rotted corpse of Vernon Dursley.

" _YOU DID THIS TO ME, FREAK!"_ the maggot-infested figure screamed at him. " _LOOK AT ME! YOU'VE KILLED ME! JUST LIKE YOU ALWAYS WANTED!"_

"No!" Harry gasped out in terror and guilt. "It wasn't my fault!"

The Vernon-thing didn't answer. It simply issued a bellow of rage and reached for Harry with a clawed hand, and as it did, the creature's entire body dissolved into a storm of doxies that fell on top of the boy who screamed in fear and pain.

"Harry!" Regulus cried out. Then, he focused down on the locket responsible for the nightmare before him. He hefted the basilisk fang and was ready to strike when the black mist twisted and billowed against. And from within it came a second figure. Regulus was prepared mentally for the sight of Eustace Tully looming over him and baying for revenge, but it was no werewolf who stepped out of the mist.

" _Hello, pretty boy_ ," said Matilda White with a smile for her husband.

"You ... no ... not real!" Regulus gasped in shock as he tried to fight against every one of his senses that were now leading him astray.

" _What does 'real' mean in a world of magic, luv,_ " she said as she reached down to gently graze his cheek with her hand. " _Aren't I real enough to touch_?"

From somewhere far away, Regulus could hear the sound of someone screaming in agony, but he found he couldn't take his eyes off the image of his wife standing before him, alive once more.

"This isn't ... you're ... oh ... oh Matty, I've missed you so much!" A single tear rolled down the man's cheek.

" _Shh, it's okay, my luv. We're together now. That's all that matters._ " She smiled again. " _And not just us. He's waiting for you too._ "

"Who?" Regulus whispered. And from somewhere nearby, he could hear the sound of a baby's soft gurgle.

Nearby, Harry was on the ground in a fetal position as scores of doxies crawled all over him, stinging him through his clothes and even through his dragonhide gloves. His vision was growing blurry, but he could see Regulus standing nearby, ignoring him as he was transfixed by the image of his late wife. Nearby, Kreacher had returned. He stood at the entrance to the sitting room, watching the scene with quiet amusement. Gritting his teeth through the pain – " _Not real! Not real!_ " he thought desperately – Harry rolled over and tried to pull himself forward with his hands even as the poisonous stings continued.

" _Our beautiful Leo is on the other side."_  Not-Matilda said. " _He wants his daddy, Rusty. We both want you to join us. So we can be a family again._ "

"How?" the man asked in a daze as tears now streamed down his cheeks.

The false-Matilda moved to embrace Regulus warmly, and she whispered gently in his ear." _The answer's right there in your hands, pretty boy. One single prick of your skin. And then we can all be together once more. Forever._ "

Nearby, a quivering hand in a blood-stained dragonhide glove slowly closed around a long sharp pearly-white object.

Not-Matty smiled down at Regulus, and it felt so good to see her pretty blue eyes once more. It had been so long. Regulus grinned joyfully back at the love of his life, barely aware of how his hand rose of its own accord, bringing the basilisk fang ever closer to his throat.

" _ **GAAAAHH!**_ " Harry screamed through the pain as he brought his own basilisk fang down right into the heart of Slytherin's Locket. The false-Matty screamed and then vanished, as did the doxy swarm and the black mist that had created them both. Harry collapsed onto the floor. The agonizing pain was gone, but the memory of it still lingered, like a nightmare from which he couldn't quite wake up.

Regulus looked around wildly for a few seconds after the specter disappeared. Then, he noticed the basilisk fang he was still holding just a few inches from his neck. With a loud cry, he hurled it away down the hall before rushing to check his companion.

"Harry! Harry! Are you alright? Speak to me!"

He rolled Harry over, and the boy's eyes fluttered open. He looked up to regard Regulus with a bleary expression.

"'M ... M'sorry," he said with a slurred voice.

"Sorry? /sniff/ My dear boy, what could you possibly have to feel sorry about?" Regulus asked as he wiped his face, relieved that Harry seemed to be recovering.

"M' sorry about your wife. She was very beautiful."

Regulus smiled and nodded. "Yes Yes, she was. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry your uncle was a grotesque flatulent git."

Despite his pain (and the guilt he still felt over indirectly causing Vernon's death), Harry couldn't help but laugh at Regulus's unkind remark. And with laughter, the pain from his psychic injuries lessened.

Nearby, the locket of Salazar Slytherin lay ruined on the floor, the black lies it whispered silenced forever.


	11. Reactions & Overreactions (4)

**CHAPTER 11: Reactions and Overreactions (Finale).**

__**5 August 1993  
8:30 a.m.  
The Office of Chief Auror James Potter**

"I want to thank you boys for bringing all this to our attention," the Chief Auror said earnestly. "At this point, every lead helps, and finding out that there's a connection between Azkaban and that business with Lockhart last term is a big one."

On the other side of James's desk sat three members of the Weasley family: Arthur, Percy, and George. Also present in the room were Senior Aurors Shacklebolt and Thicknesse and newly-commissioned Auror Proudfoot, who'd had an unexpectedly stressful first few months on the job.

"Think nothing of it, Chief Auror," Arthur said. "As soon as the boys told me last night that Professor Lockhart had put them to work on experimental portkeys and modified Polyjuice Potions, I knew we'd best let the aurors know."

For their part, Percy and George both looked contrite but also relieved that they weren't in any trouble.

"Do either of you still have any notes from your Lockhart research?" James asked. At that, Percy immediately produced a stack of parchment which he eagerly handed over.

"Here, sir. I always make a point of duplicating any reports or papers I turn it at school, especially near the end. Sometimes, especially near the end of term, the teachers don't always return them to us."

"I, ah, don't have anything, I'm afraid," George said apologetically. "I turned everything I had over to Auror Proudfoot." A soft growl came from the man himself who was standing a few feet behind the Weasleys. George winced. "Ah, sorry. To whoever it was who was pretending to be Auror Proudfoot."

"Quite so, quite so," James said while shooting the real Proudfoot a dirty look. "Well, I think that's all I need right now, but we'll contact you if we need any more information. Again, thank you for coming to see me. Arthur, boys."

The three Weasleys departed, leaving the office to James, his senior staff, and a visibly angry Michael Proudfoot. James noticed the young man's mood.

"Michael, I know this is all very upsetting to you, but if you want to stay on this case, you need to control your emotions. Otherwise, I'll have to reassign you until this investigation is over."

Proudfoot grimaced. "Sorry sir. It won't happen again."

"So," said Kingsley, "where does that leave us?"

James sat back in his chair, acutely aware of the fact that Rufus Scrimgeour, the man he'd replaced, was a deductive genius who would be brimming with ideas at this point. James knew he was not so gifted but was determined to fight his way through somehow.

"Well, we now have a clear connection between Azkaban and the Gilderoy Lockhart affair." Then, James perked up. "Maybe it's time we put some more effort into getting Lockhart his memories back."

"Is that possible?" asked Thicknesse. "If the spell that hit Lockhart is really the same one they use down under in place of executions, it's supposed to be permanent."

"Maybe so, but I'd rather get it from the horse's mouth. Kingsley, get an owl out to the Australian DMLE. See if they can send us somebody who's got experience with the Tabula Rasa Charm and can confirm that it's what took Lockhart's memories. And maybe they can give us some ideas about who could have learned that Charm without swearing an oath against using it illegally."

"On it," Kingsley said as he made a note on his pad.

"Now then, Auror Proudfoot, let's get back to your interactions with this 'Maria Gambrelli' person who you think is the one that stole some of your hair for Polyjuice."

Auror Proudfoot blanched. It was not a conversation to which he'd been looking forward.

* * *

_**9:30 a.m.  
Harry's Room, Longbottom Manor** _

Harry's eyes fluttered open, and then he winced sharply in pain. The boy had mostly recovered from the psychic attack he had suffered from the locket-horcrux the night before, but even the next morning, he still suffered from a splitting headache and heavy nausea. After returning from Grimmauld Place with Regulus, he'd gone straight to bed (in part to avoid questions from Sirius), and he was surprised to note from the clock on his night stand that he'd slept until 9:30. It was perhaps the latest he'd overslept for years, and for a moment, he imagined his Uncle Vernon bellowing at him for his laziness and sloth. Then, he remembered the vision of his uncle that the horcrux had shown him the night before and shuddered.

Shaking off the bad memories (if not the physical symptoms), Harry staggered to his bathroom to relieve himself and splash some water on his face before returning to his bedroom. There, to his surprise, he saw that his bed had already been made and the dirty clothes he'd simply dropped on the floor the night before had been removed. In their place, to Harry's greater surprise, was Dobby. The elf's dingy Malfoy tunic had been replaced with a tiny but surprisingly crisp black three-piece suit under which he wore a white wing-collar shirt and plain black tie, though like every house elf Harry had ever seen, Dobby was still barefooted. Even more surprisingly, Dobby's former cringing and broken-down demeanor was now replaced by a look of cool confidence and (Harry sensed vaguely) the barest hint of haughtiness.

"Good morning, Master Harry," Dobby said cheerfully, but not quite so cheerfully as to exacerbate Harry's headache. "Dobby has completed his instructional period with Master Harry's associate Blaise Zabini and is ready to resume his service to you, sir." Then, the elf cocked his head curiously, as if noticing Harry's physical condition. He coughed softly. "And adventuresome evening last night, sir?" he asked diplomatically.

Harry nodded and tried to reply, but nothing but a scratchy gurgle came out. He cleared his throat. "Something like that," he finally managed to get out.

"Ah, Say no more, sir. Dobby shall return momentarily."

With a soft pop, Dobby vanished. Harry looked around the room in befuddlement, idly wondering if he had enough time today to get back in bed for a bit more sleep. Before he could decide one way or the other, Dobby returned bearing a silver tray upon which rested a glass goblet containing a suspicious-looking red liquid and a small brick-shaped bit of foodstuff on a saucer. Harry studied it cautiously. It looked remarkably like a Muggle power bar.

"If you would drink this, sir," Dobby said with faint smile as he held out the glass.

"S'at a potion?" Harry asked blearily.

"Regrettably, house elves are forbidden to brew  _potions_ , sir," Dobby replied. "It is simply a little preparation of Dobby's own concoction. Dobby believes Master Harry will find it extremely invigorating after a late evening."

"N' the other ... thing?"

"Just a little something to tide Master Harry over, as it were. Dobby regrets that Master Harry has slept through breakfast, and while Dobby would certainly be delighted to prepare a more substantial repast, he fears that his master would have no time to eat and digest before his ten o'clock meeting."

" _Oh, yeah,_ " Harry thought to himself. " _Mr. X will be here at ten for his interview. Guess a granola bar probably is all I'll have time for._ "

He took the glass with a dubious expression before shrugging and tossing the whole thing back. For a few brief seconds, his nausea actually worsened and he practically had a spasm in response to the taste. But then, almost instantly, his sick feelings vanished completely, and the boy stood upright as his headache disappeared. The effects felt almost like a Pepper-Up Potion but without any of the usual magical side effects.

"I say!" Harry exclaimed despite himself, and he realized that his sore throat had also been miraculously cured. "Wow! That's ... remarkable! What's in it?"

"Regrettably, sir, Dobby cannot divulge that information. Secrets of the guild, one might say."

Harry nodded slowly. "Um, okay, I guess."

"Now, then, Master Harry, Dobby has consulted with the Longbottom elves regarding his master's regular schedule." He paused and looked somewhat contrite. "As an aside, Dobby is profoundly apologetic for any lapses he may have shown in anticipating your needs thus far in his employment. Dobby has been ... unwell. But Dobby guarantees Master Harry that his future service shall be impeccable."

"Good do know," Harry said slowly before biting into the breakfast bar. It was actually quite delicious for what tasted like granola, honey, and some kind of chopped fruit. Figs, maybe? As he chewed, Harry couldn't help but wonder  _what in hell_  Blaise did to this elf in just one day to achieve this sort of transformation.

"But Dobby digresses. Hoskins informs Dobby that Master Harry regularly rises before dawn and spends several hours cooking as a way of relieving stress. Does Harry wish to continue using Hoskins as his sous-elf, or does he desire for Dobby to assume that role? Although Master Harry will find Dobby quite proficient in the kitchen, all house elves have specialities, and, respectfully, Dobby's most efficient usage would be as a personal valet and manservant, at least while Master Harry resides in the House of Longbottom. Also, Dobby is loathe to intrude upon Hoskins' domain, as it were, unless ordered to do so. It would be ... impolitic."

Harry stared at his  _valet and manservant_  for several seconds while he processed that. Honestly, he was finding the conversation almost dreamlike in its surrealism. "I'll consider the matter and let you know, Dobby."

"Very good, sir. Finally, Master Harry's dogfather has requested you to come and meet with him prior to your ten o'clock appointment."

"Dog... father," Harry asked uncertainly.

"Godfather, Master Harry. Dobby said  _godfather_."

"... right," Harry sighed. "Well, then, best not to keep my  _godfather_  waiting. I'll go get a shower."

"Very good, sir. Dobby will prepare Master Harry's clothes for the day."

The elf popped away while Harry shook his head and went back to the bathroom.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Harry stood in front of the door to Sirius Black's room. After a moment's hesitation, he knocked softly, and from inside, he heard some coughing, followed by a raspy "Enter." The boy stepped into his godfather's room.

Sirius was still in bed, naturally. Regulus had indicated that he would be many months recuperating from his time in Azkaban. Surprisingly, the physical effects of incarceration were not the worst problem. In fact, the Azkaban staff apparently put a lot of effort into keeping their prisoners alive as long as possible, presumably to maximize their suffering. According to Augusta, Sirius would be on a regimen of healing potions for many months but should make a full recovery. Well, a full  _physical_  recovery, at least.

The real problem for Sirius Black was not in his body but rather in his mind and his soul, both of which had suffered terrible assault over his ten-plus years of constant Dementor exposure. Regulus compared it to the Muggle condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder, though the wizarding equivalent had more tangible effects. Whenever Sirius suffered a flashback, he would become ravaged by physical symptoms of his former suffering as his own magic caused his memories of pain and suffering to manifest bodily. The effects were not unlike those of extreme boggart exposure, but much harder to treat. It was possible that he might never fully recover from his experiences.

"Ah, Harry," Sirius said before he was interrupted with a brief coughing fit. But the brilliant smile he offered his godson belied his weakness. "Come in, come in!" He gestured to a chair near his bed which Harry took.

"How are you feeling ... Uncle Sirius?" Harry asked uncertainly. "I'm ... not sure what to call you."

"Just Sirius is fine, I guess. I haven't been around to look after you and your family like I should, so I get why you don't actually have any  _familial_  connection to me."

"That's hardly your fault," Harry chided.

"Maybe, maybe not," Sirius replied somewhat bitterly. "But as impossible as it seems, I let Wormtail get the best of me and paid the price."

"Wormtail," Harry said. "That's an odd nickname. Where did it come from ?"

Sirius grimaced. "Can't tell, I'm afraid. Took an oath. A stupid one as it turned out." He sighed dejectedly. "Doesn't really matter. He doesn't deserve the name anyway."

Then, he shook himself, as if to fight off encroaching depression. Sirius smiled again at his godson. "So, enough about that. We didn't get to talk for very long last night before you rushed out. And I know you've got a meeting with some Legilimency bloke in a little bit, but I'd like to ask a few questions, if you don't mind."

"Okay," Harry said cautiously. "Where do you want to start?"

"Well, you're at Hogwarts, I know. What house are you in?"

Harry opened his mouth and then shut it swiftly. " _Yeah, Dogfather_ ," he thought to himself. " _Why don't we start with_ _that_ _. Oh well, might as well rip the band-aid off all at once._ "

"I'll be a Third Year next month. I was Sorted into Slytherin."

Sirius stared at him unblinkingly for several seconds. Then, he snickered softly. "So that explains it."

"Explains what?" Harry asked quizzically.

"This morning, Augusta came in here to join me for breakfast. I said a few unkind things about Slytherins, and she rather pointedly told me never to disparage anyone for being a Slytherin while I was in her house. That it was four Slytherins who rescued me from Azkaban because they were committed to destroying You-Know-Who, and if I couldn't respect their efforts enough to stop bad-mouthing their house, she'd put Draught of Living Death in my tea and lock me up in the attic until this whole horcrux-hunt business was over."

They both laughed at that.

"Of course," he continued. "She neglected to mention your Sorting or the names of any of my rescuers other than Reg. Were you actually one of the four who helped save me?"

"Well, I didn't go to Azkaban or anything exciting like that, but I helped however I could."

"Thank you," Sirius said simply. "Augusta was right. I have ...  _issues_  with Slytherins. I know that, and I'm not sure I'll ever get over them. Nearly every Slytherin I went to school with either joined the Death Eaters or ended up dead at a Death Eater's hands for being a blood traitor. But I promise you, I will  _never_  hold your Sorting against you."

"I'm glad to hear that," Harry replied.

"So, how did James react when he got the news? I may have had issues with Slytherins, but he had whole bound volumes."

Harry shrugged. "He didn't take it well, but that was a long time ago. He seems to be over it."

Sirius grinned. "I'll bet he made some big ridiculous scene."

Harry nodded slowly. "Yeah ... I guess you could call it that," he said evasively.

"Ha! I knew it. What did he do? I can't wait to rag on him about it, you know, after I get cleared."

The boy looked down at the floor. Sirius noticed and his smile faded to be replaced with a look of concern. "Harry? What did James do?"

Harry looked away for a moment before answering. "He got drunk. And then, he sent me a Howler that went off in the Great Hall during my first breakfast at Hogwarts. Among other things, he said if put one foot out of line, he'd disown me, snap my wand, and send me back to the Dursleys."

By now, Sirius's look of concern was replaced by one of horror. "He ... what?!"

"Sirius, it's okay. Believe me. It was pretty awful in the beginning, but we've both worked hard to get past it and become a family again."

"Uh-huh. And that's why you're spending your summers with Augusta Longbottom instead of that family you just mentioned?"

Harry made a sour face. "Well, okay then. I guess I  _should_  say we're both  _working_  hard to get past it, even thought we're not there yet."

Sirius said nothing for a moment as he thought about what his godson had said. " _Back_  ... to the Dursleys. Who are the Dursleys? And why was sending you back to them a punishment that was on the table?"

"Sirius..."

"Harry, please. I want to know everything. Do you mean to say that you didn't even live with James and Lily while you were growing up?"

The boy looked up at the ceiling as if trying to decide how far down this rabbit hole he wanted to go. He saw little need to open up his own wounds, particularly if it might cause his godfather to become ill again, but he also felt the man wouldn't drop it until he had the basic picture.

"When I was a baby, several healers and also Professor Dumbledore came to the mistaken conclusion that I was a squib, and James and Lily thought it best to have me shipped off to live with Petunia and Vernon Dursley, Lily's sister and brother-in-law. I stayed with them until I started Hogwarts."

"Petunia and...!" Sirius sputtered. "That awful horse-faced wench whose letters made Lily cry at school?! And I suppose Vernon was that mustachioed whale she married!"

Harry did a double-take. " _You_ went to Petunia and Vernon's wedding?!"

"No, of course not. But your mother kept one of their wedding photos on the mantle at Godric's Hollow, so I know what they looked like.  _Petunia_  didn't even want Lily and James to attend their wedding, but your maternal grandmother Rose insisted. Though that didn't stop them from insulting your parents every chance they got. James was livid when he got home."

Sirius shook his head in amazement before studying his godson more carefully.

"And you lived with them until you turned eleven? And now you're living here with the Longbottoms?" His eyes narrowed. "How did they treat you, Harry?"

"It's not important. I won't be going back there."

"Harry ..."

"Sirius," he interrupted calmly but firmly. "It  _really_  doesn't matter anymore."

There was a brief silence between the two that was broken when Hoskins popped into the room bearing a serving tray.

"Begging the two gentlemen's pardon, but Hoskins has Lord Black's ten o'clock potion. Also, Master Harry, your own ten o'clock appointment has arrived, and Her Ladyship requests your presence."

"I'd better go," the boy said.

Sirius nodded. "Yeah, that's fine. This potion will knock me out cold for a few hours at least. But I'd like to talk some more after your meeting. We don't have to talk about James or the Dursleys or anything. I just want to get to know my godson better."

"Sure," Harry said warmly. Sirius watched the boy leave, and as soon as the door closed, his relaxed expression became pensive. " _Dammit, James_!" he thought furiously. " _What the hell have you been doing all these years!_ "

* * *

_**At that same moment, at the Granger Residence in Crawley...** _

Hermione looked up from her reading at the sound of a soft tapping at her window. It was the mid-morning Post Owl bearing a copy of the  _Daily Prophet_. She frowned. At Hogwarts, her copy was always delivered at breakfast, and she knew from conversations with Neville and Blaise that it was the same for them at home, even for Blaise who traveled extensively during the summers. Yet her copy delivered to a Muggle address in Crawley always came hours later and sometimes not until the afternoon. Idly, she wondered if Wizarding culture was actually so petty about blood purity that even newspaper deliveries for Muggleborns got bumped to the end of the list. She pushed the idea aside for the moment. There was no use in looking for soft bigotries everywhere, for she was sure to find it whether it existed or not. She paid the owl and handed it a treat before taking the newspaper over to her writing desk. The headline was every bit as lurid as she'd come to expect from the newspaper. She wondered if the wizards had learned about "journalism" from reading Rupert Murdoch's tabloids.

 __ **DEMENTORS UNLEASHED!**  
FUDGE UNVEILS CONTROVERSIAL NEW PLAN!  
WILL USE DEMENTORS TO GUARD HOGWARTS AGAINST  
DEATH EATER MENACE!

Hermione sighed loudly and hard enough to ruffle the bangs of her frizzy hair. Then, she set the paper aside and pulled out the  _Monster Book of Monsters_  that she'd recently purchased. She stroked the spine for a few moments until the book calmed down and then opened it up and flipped through to the section on Dementors. After a few minutes of review, she set the book aside with an even bigger sigh and reached for the list of school supplies she'd been working on. She added one item to the bottom and then frowned.

" _How on earth am I going to persuade Mummy and Daddy, both dentists, to let me take a large supply of chocolate to school with me?!_ "

* * *

_**Meanwhile, back in the Longbottom conference room ...** _

Six people sat around the great circular table, and Harry studied the five adults casually. Mr. Malfoy and Lady Augusta looked as composed as always, while Reg was back in his Mr. Cato face, that of an older vaguely-familiar man with Chinese features. Upon meeting him, Mr. X actually crooked an eyebrow, and when Lady Augusta actually introduced him as "Mr. Cato," he almost seemed amused before his Occlumency clouded his features once more.

As the group took their places around the table, Harry contemplated his peculiar relationship with Mr. X. He could count on one hand the adults he trusted implicitly and have a thumb left over. Artie, Augusta, Snape (to an extent – Harry understood that his relationship with Dumbledore introduced  _complexities_  to their relationship), and Mr. X. Even Reg and Malfoy he didn't trust completely. Both were former Princes of Slytherin and both had their own agendas which were congruent with his for the moment but could easily diverge under the right circumstances. Honestly, Harry suspected that if Voldemort actually did return to full power, the odds of Lucius turning on them to rush back to his former master were somewhere around 50-50. Of course, Harry  _had_  to trust Mr. X in a way. Their relationship as mentor-student meant that Mr. X was privy to Harry's innermost secrets other than those protected by the magic of the Lair, and while the Memory Lock ensured he wouldn't remember anything he learned, the man had never once given the impression of either judging or pitying Harry for what he discovered, a kindness which the boy genuinely appreciated.

And yet despite all that, Harry still knew very little about the man himself. All he'd ever let slip during their sessions was that he had a wife and children, and the complex web of Notice-Me-Not Charms and other glamours concealing the man's identity meant that Harry was literally incapable of directly perceiving anything about his true appearance and wouldn't even recognize his tutor if he bumped into the man on the street. He simply had an impression of an incredibly bland and ordinary individual with absolutely no memorable features save a tendency toward dry humor and occasional sarcasm.

In fact, Harry suddenly thought, technically even Mr. X's gender could have occluded, and it was entirely possible that his teacher had been a woman this whole time. But Harry found that unlikely. Even if he couldn't perceive any details about Mr. X's true appearance, he'd dropped enough clues at least to hint at being male, and not even Harry could fathom the insane level of paranoia needed to pretend to be of a different gender just to make a few galleons from tutoring. He was still amazed that Reg had actually transformed himself into the form of a beautiful Nordic blonde woman in order to seduce Michael Proudfoot and steal some of his hair. Harry wasn't sure exactly how far Auror Proudfoot and "Maria Gambrelli" had gone as part of that ruse, but Reg once muttered disdainfully that Proudfoot wasn't his "type." And also that he had bad breath.

Unlike Marcus Flint, the conspiracy would not be binding Mr. X to an Unbreakable Vow at first. Instead, he would simply be swearing a high-level secrecy oath which would strike him with an extremely debilitating curse if he revealed anything he learned during this initial meeting. For that alone, Malfoy was paying him 1,000 galleons for an hour of his time with the understanding that he would consent to a Memory Lock if he did not wish to proceed any further. If, on the other hand, he was agreeable to helping them (at a fairly outrageous price), he would reveal his true identity and swear an Unbreakable Vow.

"Now, to business," Mr. X after completing his secrecy vow. "And I am most eager to find out what the business is that requires such high levels of secrety and also involves such esteemed personages as Lucius Malfoy and Augusta Longbottom. To say nothing of the reclusive squib manservant and subsequent heir to the notorious Gilderoy Lockhart. Mr. ...  _Cato_ , I believe you said?"

"Yes," the metamorphmagus said amiably. "That's the name."

"Of course it is," said Mr. X with a drawl.

Harry frowned. There was some subtext here that he was missing, but he thought he detected a whiff of disdain from Mr. X directed towards Reg's current persona. " _Is Mr. X bigoted towards Asians_?" he thought curiously.

"Let us get straight to the point, Mr. X," said Augusta. "You are here today because we desire your aid in bringing about the final destruction of You-Know-Who."

Mr. X stared. "I see. Most people are under the impression that the Dark Lord's destruction was achieved twelve years ago through the power of the Boy-Who-Lived. I am ... aware that Mr. Potter here believes differently, but I should like to know what your cabal has uncovered that leads you to think you can succeed where so many others have failed. Also, I must admit to some surprise as to  _your_  involvement, Mr. Malfoy, given your own  _history_  with the Dark Lord."

Malfoy puffed up a bit. "As I'm sure you know, sir, I was found not guilty of being a Death Eater due to an ironclad Imperius defense. In any case, whether you believe I was a Death Eater or not, let me assure you that my current opposition to the Dark Lord is implacable."

"Indeed," Mr. X said languidly. "So how, exactly, do you all propose to destroy the Dark Lord? And what will my role in these machinations be?"

Augusta spoke. "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named secured for himself a limited form of immortality through the use of cursed objects known as horcruxes, into each of which he has inserted a fraction of his very soul. As long as these objects endure, he can never truly be slain. Presently, he exists in a spirit-like form in which he is able to possess others and potentially communicate with his supporters. And we believe it is possible for him to eventually reconstitute a body for himself unless all of his horcruxes are destroyed first."

"To that end," continued Malfoy, "we have liberated the Dark Lord's most trusted advisors from Azkaban. It is our desire for you to probe them with Legilimency to determine if any of them know anything about the nature and location of his horcruxes, as well as exactly how many horcruxes he made if it be known."

Not all of Mr. X's poise and Occlumency could keep the shock from his face. "You?! You people engineered a breakout from the most dangerous prison in the word? And your purpose was simply to interrogate the Dark Lord's five most dangerous and loyal followers? I cannot decide whether to describe your actions as bold or deranged!"

"Why can't they be both?" Mr. Cato asked mischievously. "And I'd like to correct you on one point. We broke out four of You-Know-Who's closest followers and one innocent man. We believe that Sirius Black is innocent of the crimes of which he was accused."

Mr. X went silent for several seconds, and when he spoke, his voice was suddenly very cold and precise. "I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?" Across the table, Harry stiffened as his curiosity suddenly became concern for reasons he couldn't articulate even to himself. He focused all of his Legilimency awareness on his tutor.

"Exactly what I said," continued Mr. Cato who was oblivious to Harry's growing apprehension. "We believe Black is innocent. We'd also like your assistance in proving that if you can, as well as your help in healing the mental damage he's suffered."

Mr. X nodded slowly. "And where is the poor innocent Sirius Black now?"

"Um, Cato?" Harry began nervously as his apprehension blossomed into outright alarm, but Augusta spoke over him.

"The four Death Eaters are incapacitated in the dungeon beneath this house, but Lord Black is resting comfortably in a bedroom right down the hall..."

Suddenly, before Augusta could continue, there was a blur of motion from the Occlumens. His wand seemed to appear from nowhere, and he stabbed it at the table which instantly dissolved into a whirlwind of sawdust that blew into the faces of those others present. Forewarned, Harry dove for cover, while Mr. X targeted Cato before the other man could recover from his surprise. " _ **INCARCEROUS!**_ " he shouted. The spell struck with such force that it knocked the man out of his chair before leaving him bound and lying on the floor.

Augusta and Lucius were quicker to respond despite the sawdust whirlwind which now seemed to be more of a distraction than an actual attack. Malfoy lashed out with a Stunner, only for Mr. X to casually parry it straight into Augusta Longbottom who fell to the ground before she could utter a single spell. Then, for good measure, Mr. X chained his parry into another spell, one Harry had never heard of before. " _ **LEVICORPUS!**_ "

Suddenly, Malfoy was jerked off the ground by his right foot and suspended upside down several feet above the floor, and he dropped his wand in surprise. Nearby, Cato's eyes widened, and he glared at Mr. X before closing his eyes in concentration. From behind a nearby sofa, Harry yelled out to the Occlumens.

"Why are you doing this?!"he exclaimed in a fury.

"Stay out of this,  _Potter_. Don't think about trying to intervene unless you want the Ministry drawn to the scene for your underage magic!"

"I chose you for this because I trusted you!" Harry yelled angrily. "You swore an oath!"

Mr. X sneered. "Yes, Potter, I swore an oath of secrecy, but that was all. And I can assure you I will take to my grave the tale of how I  _killed_  that miserable bastard Sirius Black!" The man started to turn to the door but was then distracted and did a double-take. While he was talking to Harry, Mr. Cato had somehow stretched himself from a somewhat short Asian man to one who would be over seven-feet-tall if standing upright. His arms and torso had grown incredibly thin as a result, and Cato had successfully wriggled out of his conjured ropes and was now pulling out his own wand.

Angrily, Mr. X targeted Cato for a Stunner, but just before he could fire, Harry dilated his perceptions so that he could time his move. At the last second, Harry hurled himself forward and took the Stunner in place of his ally, Cato. The boy dropped to the floor and slid into the wall already unconscious. Shocked by the self-sacrifice, Mr. X was unable to defend himself when Cato fired off an Expelliarmus that knocked the man across the room while sending his own wand into Cato's waiting hand. For good measure, Cato then fired off an Incarcerous of his own to bind Mr. X before pulling off the rest of his ropes and climbing to his feet. As he did, he shrank back down to his normal height before casting Renervate spells on Harry and Augusta.

"Well," said Lucius irritably with as much poise as he could muster while hanging upside down by his ankle. "Kindly don't leave me hanging, if you'll pardon the pun." Harry was suddenly pleased that Malfoy's devotion to wizarding traditions did not extend to robes with nothing but underpants beneath them, and the man's anachronistic but otherwise Mugglish suit kept everything in its proper place.

"Sorry, Lucius," Cato said. "That's a very special curse that I've seen in action but never had the chance to learn. Unless you know the specific countercurse, you can't break it until it wears off after about an hour."

"And let me guess," Malfoy grumbled. "You don't know the countercurse."

"No," Cato replied as he moved towards the bound and seething Mr. X with his wand pointed and ready for any further attack. Harry moved to stand next to him, his face still a mask of shock and betrayal.

"Happily though," Cato continued, "I believe that the spell's creator is close at hand.  _ **REVELIO!**_ "

The spell washed over Mr. X, and slowly his generic unmemorable hair darkened to a slick black, his generic clothes changed to ebon robes with perhaps too many buttons, and his generic face morphed into sallow features with a nose that seemed entirely too big for the face. Harry gasped. Mr. X was gone, and now it was the familiar face of Severus Snape that glared up at them both with an expression of boundless fury.

* * *

_**Five minutes later ...** _

"Explain!" Harry said irritably.

"Manners, Potter," Snape said imperiously. "I am still your teacher and am owed a measure of respect."

The group had reassembled back back in their chairs around the pile of dust that was all that remained of what Lady Augusta grumpily described as "a Hepplewhite table that's been in the family since 1810." Snape had been allowed his wand long enough to countercurse Malfoy (Harry made a mental note of the wand movement and the incantation,  _Liberacorpus_ ), but Mr. Cato then confiscated it once more and handed it off to Malfoy who secreted it inside his jacket. Now, Harry and all the grownups sat guardedly with three of the adults pointing their wands at the fourth. Harry was not pointing a wand for obvious reasons, which was a good thing as he was having more difficulty than usual in suppressing his temper. In fact, he was probably angrier now than at any point since he'd started studying Occlumency.

"Don't talk to me about respect,  _sir_ ," Harry said through gritted teeth. "It's summer, and school is out. And I don't expect to consider Mr. X a teacher of any sort ever again."

"Harry, calm down," said Cato.

"No, don't anyone tell me to calm down." He glared almost murderously at the Potions Master. "Not ten minutes ago, I was actually thought to myself that there were at most four adults in the world I really, truly trusted. Four! And I have just learned that two of them were actually  _the same person who has been lying to me from the start!_  So I'll ask again – explain yourself!"

Snape let out a long-suffering sigh. "If you will recall, Mr. Potter, I was the one who first detected your natural skill at Legilimency and realized that you would likely become a skilled Occlumens as well if led to apply yourself. I quickly realized that, modesty aside, there was simply no one else in Britain who could possibly teach you as well as myself, with the possible exception of the Headmaster, who you would never accept as an instructor, and a few certain individuals with Death Eater connections who were as likely to murder you as teach you. And yet, I also knew that even if you agreed to let me instruct you, an uncertain prospect at best, you would never develop your abilities to their height under my guidance. Teaching the psychic arts requires a powerful bond of trust, and between me being your head of house, my oaths to the Headmaster, and my ... relationships with both your parents and also your brother, I knew you would never trust Severus Snape enough to fulfill your potential."

"So you invented Mr. X and then encouraged me to study under him," Harry concluded in a cold voice.

"Don't overexaggerate your own importance, Potter. I didn't invent that persona just for you. Mr. X really is the anonymous identity I use for teaching private Occlumency and Legilimency lessons during the summers to supplement my income. Despite or perhaps because of the rarity of the two gifts, teaching either or both of them is a very lucrative field, and my reputation as Mr. X is well-known, at least among the somewhat insular subculture of devotees of the psychic arts. After you acquiesced to my recommendations about studying Occlumency, it was a simple matter to arrange for Mr. X's resume to pass into the hands of your solicitor who hired me on the merits. And also at a significant discount on my usual fee, I might add."

Harry rolled his eyes but then furrowed his brow in confusion. "Hang on, a minute! You said you had a wife and two kids!"

"Oh think it through, Potter! You're a Legilimency deductive genius. Unless I diverted you somehow, it was inevitable that some slip-up would allow you to realize that Mr. X and Severus Snape were the same person. So I made a maudlin display of tearfully revealing the existence of a fictitious family for whose safety I was concerned. You accepted that at face value and thereafter ignored any points of comparison between the two personas."

Snape's statement shocked Harry, and as he thought about it, he realized it was the truth. He'd actually lost count of the number of times that he'd noticed how much Mr. X reminded him of Snape, especially in their shared tendency towards biting wit, but he'd never considered the possibility of them being the same person.

"Is that why Mr. X constantly insulted Severus Snape and discouraged me from following his advice?"

"In part. But it was also valuable to your training. As Severus Snape, I could drive you to develop your powers to the fullest, while as Mr. X, I could warn you about the potential risks of pushing too hard. And also, I suppose, about the dangers of placing too much trust in someone with loyalties as conflicting and complicated as mine. Whose advice you chose to follow was ultimately your own choice. Besides, at this point in my life, sarcasm is second-nature to me, and by directing it at myself, I further separate the two personalities in your mind."

"Speaking of sarcasm," Malfoy interrupted, "this is all  _fascinating_. But can we please get back to this matter for which I've paid a thousand galleons just to ensure your presence here. You know what is at stake with the Dark Lord's horcruxes. Will you help us? That is, I suppose, without making the murder of Sirius Black a precondition?"

Snape sat and thought for a long moment. "I will swear an oath to maintain the secrecy of your cabal and its agenda and also to aid you in probing the minds of your captives, but  _only_  to the extent it is safe for me to do so. The Lestranges have all had Occlumency training from Augustus Rookwood, and a probe of their minds could be highly dangerous unless undertaken with the utmost care. I believe I can penetrate the defenses of the three Lestranges, but you are all being quite naive if you think it can be done anytime soon. It would likely take weeks to prepare myself for even a preliminary scan. And I will tell you all right now, I would never attempt to enter the mind of Augustus Rookwood unless I were persuaded that the fate of the world depended on it."

All of the conspirators looked dismayed at that news. Finally, Augusta spoke.

"We quite understand, Professor Snape. And I hesitate to ask, but about Lord Black...?"

Snape barked out a laugh. "So he's a  _Lord_  now? Typical! No, Lady Longbottom. I will not lift a finger to help that animal in any way. If it is essential to defeat the Dark Lord, then I will swear an oath not to raise my wand against him except in self-defense until the Dark Lord is finally defeated. But once that is done, Sirius Black and I will have a reckoning. Of that, I can promise you."

Throughout Snape's speech, Mr. Cato grew progressively angrier, but it was Lucius who spoke first.

"What exactly is the source of your obvious hatred for Sirius Black beyond schoolyard rivalries?" he inquired. "We are certain that he was never actually a Death Eater."

"Frankly, I don't give a damn whether he was a Death Eater or not," Snape snapped. "Either way, he was a cruel, vicious bastard who deserved what happened to him." Then, the Potions Master turned his attention to the fuming Mr. Cato. "But before I say anything more, since we're all laying our cards on the table, perhaps Sirius Black's brother  _Regulus_  might do me the courtesy of dropping that ridiculous disguise and showing his true face!"

Silence fell on the room, and Cato's expression of anger was replaced by one of astonishment. "How long have you known?" he finally asked.

Snape snorted. "I've had most of the clues for months, but it was only in the last few minutes that all of the pieces fell into place. I was the first to suspect Gilderoy Lockhart's imposture by an unknown wizard with some form of shapeshifting magic after I noticed his apparent ignorance of events from the real Lockhart's school days. I reported my suspicions to James Potter, but naturally the imbecile leapt to the wrong conclusion and assumed that it was the real Lockhart who had simply gone dark. The newspaper accounts of Lockhart's histrionic confession followed by his apparent self-lobotomy – not to mention the report of him leaving all of his wealth to  _an Asian squib manservant named Cato_  – strongly suggested that the shapeshifter had simply assumed a new identity after disposing of the real Lockhart. However, I kept my suspicions to myself because I could not prove anything nor could I divine why the mystery shapeshifter posed as the Hogwarts Defense instructor in the first place. But when the Azkaban breakout occurred and was apparently facilitated through shapeshifting magic, I realized that the imposter was involved and as Lockhart had tricked the best and brightest of the Hogwarts student body into giving him the means to defeat Azkaban's defenses."

He smirked at Cato who was still speechless. "And  _then_ , I was invited here to finally meet the elusive Mr. Cato and more connections were made. I realized at once that the shapeshifter was raised as a Pureblood but later spend considerable time either among Muggles or in some foreign Magical culture where association with Muggles was more common than Britain. I also knew that the only known British Metamorphmagus of this era was Nymphadora Tonks who inherited her gift from the Blacks. Your personal interest in exonerating Sirius Black was the final clue I needed. Obviously, Regulus Black was a secret metamorphmagus who faked his own death and fled Britain for either the Muggle world or a foreign Magical society with strong Muggle ties, and he stayed there for many years before returning in the guise of Gilderoy Lockhart in order to manipulate the top Hogwarts students into giving him the means to rescue his miscreant brother from prison."

Snape glanced over at Harry and sniffed disdainfully. "I may not have born with your  _natural_  affinity for the deductive aspects of Legilimency, Mr. Potter, but I  _am_  a master Legilimens, and that includes developing such skills."

Cato shook his head in confusion. "How did you know that I was a Pureblood who went Muggle?!"

"Elementary, my dear Regulus," he said smugly. "For one thing, only an insular paranoid Pureblood family like the Blacks could have concealed the existence of a Metamorphmagus from the Conscription List. But more importantly, only someone thoroughly immersed in Muggle culture would be aware of the existence of a somewhat obscure Muggle fictional character such Cato from the  _Pink Panther_  film series. And  _only a Pureblood_ would be so  _fatuous_ as to disguise himself as Cato from the  _Pink Panther_  film series and never imagine that his false identity might be  _obvious_ to any Muggle-born or Muggle-raised wizards he encountered. Honestly, Regulus! I lived among British Muggles throughout the 1960's and 70's!  _Of course, I know who Burt Kwouk is!_ "

The others all turned to look at Cato who was suddenly blushing.

"Burt ... Kwouk?" Harry inquired.

"He's a Muggle actor. He, um, he played Inspector Clouseau's manservant Cato in the, ah,  _Pink Panther_ movies." The others continued to stare at him. "They're really very funny.  _A Shot In the Dark_  was my favorite. You should watch them sometime." More staring. Finally, he sighed loudly and shook his head vigorously to reset his appearance to that of Regulus Black.

"Better?" he asked Snape.

"Marginally," Snape drawled.

"Professor Snape," said Augusta. "I know what Sirius Black was like when you were at school together. My son Frank spoke of James Potters band of hooligans many times. But you both graduated from Hogwarts nearly a quarter-century ago. In the face of a crisis as serious as a reborn You-Know-Who, surely you can put aside whatever bad memories you have of his past bullying."

Snape straightened in his chair. "With all due respect, Lady Augusta, It was  _far more_  than childish bullying. When I knew him last, Sirius Black was a psychopath, and I have no reason to think that a decade in Azkaban has improved either his disposition or his character."

Regulus's lip curled in disgust. "You know, Severus, I must say I really do find it astonishing to see what a monumental hypocrite you've grown up to be. Breath-taking really."

Snape's eyes flashed dangerously, and Lucius casually shifted in his seat. Snape's wand was still in his pocket, and he didn't want the other man to summon it wandlessly and resume conflict. Like Augusta, he grieved slightly for the ruined Hepplewhite table and wished to see no more irreplaceable antiques destroyed today.

"How.  _Dare_. You!" Snape hissed at Regulus.

"Oh knock it off, Severus," the other man interrupted. "It's  _me_. Regulus Black! I was a Slytherin just one year behind you. We spent six years sharing a dormitory. I  _know_  you. You may have ruined your friendship with Lily Evans by losing your temper and calling her a Mudblood to her face, but we both know how free you were with that word while it was just other Slytherins around. And you may never have bullied anyone personally, but you were perfectly happy to be the evil genius behind Mulciber, Rosier, and Avery. We both know that nearly every dark curse they learned at Hogwarts came from you."

"Do not presume to equate the childish pranks of Mulciber and Avery with what Sirius ...!"

"MARY McDONALD!" Regulus shouted angrily. Instantly, Snape went silent with his mouth still hanging open in surprise.

"Oh," Reg continued in a more reasonable tone of voice. "So you  _do_  remember poor Mary McDonald. Or as I believe you used to refer to her, "that jumped-up little Mudblood from Aberdeen." Refresh my memory, Severus. Did Mary McDonald ever return to Hogwarts after that breakdown she had during her OWLS? For that matter, were the mind healers at St. Mungo's ever able to cure her of that persistent delusion that she had cockroaches crawling around under her skin?"

Harry looked from Reg to Snape in shock, and Snape himself bore an expression of shame that the boy had never imagined his rigidly-controlled teacher could display.

"What happened to Mary McDonald was ... unfortunate," Snape said much more quietly. "A schoolboy prank that went wrong." Then, he looked up at Reg, determination returning to his face. "While I regret it, it was not comparable to what Sirius Black did to me."

"No? Then share with us, Severus. What exactly did my brother, who was only two months older than you, ever do to you that was as bad as what you helped Mulciber do to Mary McDonald."

Snape locked eyes with Regulus, and a fierce righteous anger seemed to fill him.

"He tried to murder me, Regulus."

Silence reigned.

"I don't believe you," Regulus finally said in a quiet voice.

"Believe what you want, Regulus, but it is the truth. In the fall of 1976, your brother Sirius deliberately and with malice aforethought tried to bring about my death. I cannot reveal all the details due to oaths I was compelled to swear for the protection of innocent parties. But make no mistake. Sirius Black actively tried to murder me, and he only failed because of the last-minute intervention of James Potter to whom I owe a life debt over the matter even though I know perfectly well that the arrogant sod only acted to save me to prevent his friends from being harmed or punished for Black's actions. Sirius Black tried to kill me, and I shall never forgive him for it."

"No one is asking you to embrace the man as a boon companion, Severus," said Lucius while wearing a speculative expression. "Merely that you work with us and by extension him. If the passage of time cannot heal your wounds, what else would do it?"

"There is not enough gold in all the Malfoy vaults to persuade me to work with Sirius Black." Snape said with a sneer.

Lucius smiled. "Well actually, I wasn't going to offer gold from the  _Malfoy_  vaults ...  _Regent Prince_."

Snape went very still. "... what?"

"I have found you an Heir, Severus. A wizard of the line of Prince. Someone who can exercise a legal claim to the Prince seat but who, for a number of reasons, cannot formally take it for at least three years and perhaps as many as ten. Someone who is willing to reinstate you to the Prince family and appoint  _you_  as his Regent until he comes of age. Someone also willing to share with his only magical kin the bounty of the Prince vaults in exchange for helping to transition fully into our world."

"A Muggleborn descended from squibs of the Prince line," Snape said slowly. Then, his expression hardened. "And you think dangling the Prince inheritance in front of me is enough for me to let go of my hatred of Sirius Black?"

"I  _think_  that dangling the Prince inheritance was enough to get you  _to take the Dark Mark_ , my old friend. A decision that you have regretted ever since. And I  _think_  that offering you that inheritance once more, conditional on you doing whatever you can to help  _defeat_ the Dark Lord, will purge you of those regrets."

" _And just like that_ ," Harry thought to himself,  _"Malfoy's got him._ " The boy marveled internally at what he'd just witnessed, a demonstration of why Lucius Malfoy had been worthy to become a Prince of Slytherin. Some Princes had magical gifts that eased the way like Parseltongue or Metamorphmagic. But others, like Lucius, simply had a knack for knowing what people wanted and how to get it for them.

The group spent the remainder of the hour discussing terms before Snape left for Hogwarts. One of his terms was that he would need the Headmaster's permission to miss school on those occasions he returned here to psychically interrogate their prisoners, though naturally he would not be able to explain the true reasons for his absence. But assuming Dumbledore consented, Snape was on board. He even promised to try to help Sirius with his various mental issues, but only while Sirius "keeps a civil tongue in his empty head."

Later that afternoon, Harry went to visit Sirius once again after the man's long nap.

"So how did your meeting go?" Sirius said groggily. "Is your Occlumency guy on board?"

"... he is," Harry replied.

"Good news. I look forward to meeting him sometime."

"Yeah," Harry said with his best fake smile. "That'll definitely be an interesting conversation."

* * *

__**9:00 p.m.  
Cauchemar Abbey  
Dark Peak Moor, Derbyshire**

Cassius Warrington fought down the urge to adjust his collar as he struggled to eat his  _Bisque de Crevettes_ without dribbling it down the front of his shirt. It was the boy's first visit to Cauchemar Abbey, the ancestral home of the Selwyn family since some time around the Eighth Century. Initially, Cassius had thrown a bit of a tantrum which his father had told him the night before that he would be attending a "family dinner party" when he'd already made plans to spend the weekend with Miles Bletchley. He complained rather loudly about the imposition ... and then was shocked into obedience when his father slapped him for the first time in his life. He was even more shocked when he looked up at his father and realized that the man wasn't angry with him.

He was afraid.

Cassius put that insight out of his mind and focused on his soup. He had no idea what  _Bisque de Crevettes_ was though he suspected it was something to do with shrimp. He also had no idea what "Cauchemar" meant beyond the fact that, like his soup, it was something French. Probably something awful to judge by the frighteningly oppressive architecture and Gothic furniture in the old manse. He'd ask Miranda about the name, as she spoke French, but the girl was no longer on speaking terms with him.

Which made things rather tense since the girl was sitting to his left and resolutely ignoring him.

Though not directly related to the House of Selwyn, Miranda Bonnevie was a part of the extended family by way of the Warringtons. Specifically, she was the niece of Cassius's mother, Juliana Warrington  _née_  Bonnevie. It had been his family's hope that the Bonnevies might someday be brought into the larger Selwyn family network, thereby extending the Selwyns' reach into France where most of the Bonnevies reside. But all his parents' work on that front had apparently been ruined by Cassius's disastrous screw-up the previous term. The plan had been to lead Jim Potter, the Heir of Slytherin, into a greater appreciation of dark magic and eventually Pureblood ideology. It ended with Cassius suspended and forced to repeat Fourth Year and Miranda expelled and on her way to finish her last year of education at Beauxbatons. Understandably, relations between the Warringtons and the Bonnevie's were  _strained_ , which was why it surprised Cassius when his father announced that Miranda would be coming with them to tonight's dinner party. Surprised and perhaps troubled. Cassius Warrington was by no means the most astute of Slytherins, but even he was aware of a terrible undercurrent of tension that flowed beneath every bit of casual dinner conversation so far. It was as though nearly everyone in the room was waiting for an axe to fall. But on whose neck?

Cassius looked around the room. The throne-like chair at the head of the long table was empty. It had been reserved for Adramalech Selwyn who had been Lord Selwyn since before Cassius's  _grandfather_  had been born. But these days, Lord Selwyn was rarely seen out in public, or even in private for that matter. Cassius assumed it was due to declining health since he was pretty sure the man was over 160 years old. To either side of empty chair sat an elderly witch and a positively ancient wizard, Auntie Camilla and Great-Uncle Merihem, Adramalech's younger siblings. Merihem's grand-daughter, Cassilda (the House Seneshal despite her youth) sat between Merihem and Aldones Selwyn, Cassilda's father and Merihem's son. Cassilda's older brother Hyades, a neckless hulk of a wizard who rarely spoke, sat beside Auntie Camilla. One thing that had been drummed into Cassius's head by his parents was that Adramalech was Grandfather, Camilla was Auntie, and Merihem was Great-Uncle. Their given names were not to be used in casual conversation, and their actual familial relationships were deemed irrelevant. As for the rest, anyone outside one's immediate family was simply "Cousin" regardless of any actual family relationships.

Moving down from the head of the table, Corban Yaxley sat with his three children: two boys (Giles and Albert) who attended Durmstrang and a daughter (Viola) who would be head girl at Beauxbatons this upcoming year. It was expected that she would help Miranda "adjust" to her new situation. After the Yaxleys came the Carrows. Amycus and Alecto sat across from each other, and each had one of the identical twins, Hestia and Flora, sitting beside them. Cassius had once jokingly asked his father whether Amycus and Alecto were brother-and-sister, husband-and-wife, or both. His father immediately grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him furiously while shouting almost hysterically " _Never ask such things where anyone else might hear!_ ' Flora and Hestia rarely spoke at dinner, but they constantly gave each other significant looks, as though they could hear one another's thoughts. They also took turns glancing at Cassius and smirking, as if to suggest to him that they knew something vitally important that he did not.

The Warringtons were seated near the far end of the table from the great chair, and even Cassius was not so oblivious as to miss the significance of the seating arrangements. The only one farther away from the Selwyn end of the table was poor, pitiful Uriah Travers who ignored everyone else while slowly dranking himself into a stupor. His wife, brother, and two of his sons had died during the Wizarding War, while his third son was a convicted Death Eater who was  _not_  among those that had been rescued from Azkaban earlier in the week. Uriah never took the Dark Mark and even gave testimony against his son which is what secured his own freedom and Lordship, but now, twelve years later, he had nothing left to offer anyone save the five votes he cast in the Selwyns' favor whenever called upon to do so. Whenever he eventually finished drinking himself to death, the House of Travers would likely die with him.

The food was excellent, as to be expected for an Ancient and Noble House at the height of its power, though poor Cassius, who had not received the deportment training one might expect of, say, a Malfoy or a Longbottom, struggled a bit with which fork to use on each course. And each misstep brought another smirk from the Carrow girls which only caused the boy to grow angrier as the meal progressed. Through it all, however, there were no discussions of politics or current affairs which, as Auntie Camilla reminded everyone, were not proper topics for the dinner table. Discussion instead focused on banal observations about fashion, Quidditch, recent theater productions, and the occasional Mudblood joke.

Finally, after the dessert plates were taken away, everyone moved from the dining room to a large study and billiard room where the house elves served drinks: butterbeer for the minors, wine for most of the women, scotch for most of the men. Cousin Cassilda, Auntie Camilla, and Great-Uncle Merihem eschewed all those drink options in favor of a thick ruby-red beverage that looked like some sort of cherry cordial served in tall fluted glasses. The house elves served the drinks in silence, and none of them so much as made eye contact with anyone in the room. Cassilda took a sip from her drink, licked her lips as if to savor the taste, and then leaned back against a billiard table before addressing the group.

"Let me begin by saying that Grandfather is still resting and will not be joining us this evening," she said. Immediately and to Cassius's surprise, a good deal of the tension in the room drained away, and Cousin Uriah actually exhaled in obvious relief.

"However, I spoke with Grandfather at length, and he has a number of questions which he finds vexing. Let us begin with the most obvious ones. I feel certain that none of you would be so ... presumptuous as to involve yourselves with the shocking events from Azkaban Prison that have captured the nation's attention this week. Or at least, none of you would have done so without at least  _consulting_  with us beforehand. However, if any of you have any information you feel might be useful to the Family, please share it now."

At first, there was silence as the assembled family members waited to see who would be the first to stick his neck under the blade. It turned out to be Corban Yaxley, who was not only Lord of his own House but also an official of some importance within the DMLE.

"In the confusion surrounding the Azkaban affair, I was able to filch the incident report on a mysterious fire that broke out in the community of Thurso on the coast of Northern Scotland. Twenty Muggles were killed that night."

"Bah!" said Uriah with a loud belch. "What do we care for burnt Muggles, Yaxley?" Then, the drunken old man noticed Cassilda staring at him. He clamped his mouth shut and began studying the carpets intently.

"I found it significant, Travers," Yaxley said with annoyance, "because Thurso is the only Muggle settlement that lies outside the Ministry's early warning system, which means it's virtually the only place where more than three wizards could enter the country via international portkey simultaneously without it being detected. And  _also_  because the Azkaban breakout happened  _the very next night_!"

Cassilda nodded. "So you suspect that whoever was responsible entered the country via Thurso and then killed all the Muggles who saw their arrival. Well done, Cousin Corban. Please continue your investigation."

Auntie Camilla snickered. "I always said you were my favorite, Little Corby." Corban's smile faltered, and he swallowed at the possible implications of gaining the favoritism of this particular witch.

Amycus Carrow spoke up next as if eager not to be upstaged by Yaxley. "By an interesting coincidence, our sources in Eastern Europe have told us that within the past week, Fenrir Greyback has pulled his entire pack out of Lithuania. Their current location is unknown, but their disappearance coincides with the timing of the events in Thurso that Yaxley just described."

"I find it highly unlikely that either Greyback or any of the Magical werewolves who follow him can produce a mass portkey," said Yaxley with contempt.

"I agree," said Cassilda, "but that might mean that he is acting as a catspaw for someone who  _can_  produce such a portkey. Cousin Corban, Cousin Amycus, reach out to your spies in the Ministry. Get us a list of British underground portkey artificers who might have the skills and inclination to produce a portkey for Greyback's entire pack. Other than that, Grandfather would like all of you to keep your eyes and ears open for any information, but do not draw any untoward attention to our Family in these tumultuous times."

"Moving on," said Great-Uncle Merihem as he lit up his signature pipe, the one that had been carved with the face of a leering daemonic imp, "has anyone heard any juicy rumors about the other members of our noble fraternity that might have any bearing on recent events."

Juliana glanced at her husband before speaking up. "It is likely unconnected to these affairs, but I have heard rumors that Tiberius Nott has entered a sealed marriage contract. I have not yet heard who the intended bride is to be, but if the Family thinks it important, I will make further inquiries."

"Please do so," said Cassilda. "That is indeed an interesting rumor, coming on the heels of the remarkable lengths to which Tiberius Nott went in order to mark his younger son as an outcast. Has anyone any thoughts on his motivations for either his upcoming nuptials or his unseemly vengeance against the No-Name boy?"

Uriah barked out a crude laugh. "I think I've got an idea. Mainly because the bastard told me about it after too much fire-whisky last time we went out whoring together. The fool is still trying to get me to forswear myself to the Selwyns and join his alliance. I won't, but I'll still enjoy m'self on his coin."

"The Family is grateful for your continued loyalty, Cousin Uriah."

Uriah snorted. "Like we don't both know the price I'd pay for  _disloyalty_ , Cousin Cassilda. Anyway -hic- Tiberius thinks that Theo No-Name was never actually his spawn. Thinks his wife and Lucius Malfoy cuckolded him."

"Ah!" exclaimed Auntie Camilla. "And poor old Lucius cannot rescue little Theo No-Name from his awful fate without confirming the cuckoldry and paying a heavy price for it. How charmingly diabolical! I wouldn't have thought Tiberius Nott would have such cunning in him."

Cassilda turned to Alecto Carrow. "See that this rumor is passed via third parties to the Skeeter woman. We will let her investigate and expose Malfoy if the rumor is true ... or, I suppose, if the theory is plausible enough to escape defamation claims. Regardless, the Family will not take an obvious side in any future Malfoy-Nott feud."

Then, her gaze returned to the Yaxleys. "Is the Malfoy heir still on his way to Durmstrang?"

Corban nodded. "He is. I have already instructed Giles and Albert to afford young Draco every courtesy. I have also advised them on how to undermine the boy if it appears he and his father are no long loyal to the fraternity. Given the way dear Narcissa has cut them both off, that seems likely the case."

"Keep us informed." Cassilda thought for a moment. "It is interesting, now that we mention it, that both the Malfoy Heir and the younger Nott should undergo such dramatic life-changing events at the same time." Her gaze scanned across the entire room. "Do they have anything in common?" she said with an almost exaggerated curiosity.

There was silence at first, and then Miranda Bonnevie spoke up.

"Harry Potter," she said with barely disguised bitterness.

"Oh, Cousin Miranda? Do tell us more."

Miranda looked over to the Warringtons for a second and then stood.

"Harry Potter has been a close friend of Theo No-Name almost since their start of school. Potter and Draco Malfoy initially started an antagonistic relationship until Easter Break of 1992, when ...  _something_  happened. I've never been able to find out what, but the end result was that Harry Potter somehow acquired the loyalty of Draco Malfoy as well as that of both Slytherin prefects and the Quidditch captain in a single night.  _No one_  knows what he did to achieve that, but it resulted in a significant alteration to Malfoy's own character over the course of the next year, to the point that Draco also developed an extremely close friendship with ...  _a Mudblooded Hufflepuff_!"

The rest of the Family began to murmur at that news until a barely audible cough by Merihem caused them all to instantly go silent.

"These are remarkable claims, Cousin Miranda. And refresh my memory. Was it not also this ...  _Harry Potter_  who played a role in your own unfortunate reversal of fortune?"

Miranda returned Cassilda's gaze levelly and did her best not show fear. "It was," she said.

"Please," Cassilda purred almost seductively. "Tell us more."

Miranda spared the merest glance at her aunt's family before she began. "It began with a plan by Cousin Cassius. As I'm sure you all know, the Boy-Who-Lived was revealed this past year as a Parselmouth. Cassius believed that this was a sign that he was the Heir of Slytherin and had somehow been Sorted incorrectly into Gryffindor. He proposed that we ingratiate ourselves with Jim Potter and introduce him to certain darker magics than he was accustomed, with the goal of seducing him to our ideology. Cousin Cassius asked for my assistance, and I acquiesced."

"And you thought that likely that this scheme would work?" Corban Yaxley said incredulously before ducking his head in response to a casual glance from Cassilda.

"Honestly, no," Miranda said bluntly. "But I did think it possible that we could manipulate him into using potentially illegal curses in some capacity so that we could either engineer his expulsion or further damage his reputation. Failing that, there was always the possibility of blackmail."

Auntie Camilla nodded in seeming approval. "And what went wrong?"

"As I said, Harry Potter. He somehow learned of our scheme and blackmailed Cassius's lackeys, Derrick and Bole, into betraying Cousin Cassius. Who, in turn, betrayed  _me_!"

" _That's a LIE!_ " Cassius said, jumping to his feet. Instantly, his mother and father each grabbed him by a shoulder and roughly shoved him back into his seat.

" _Be SILENT!_ " Antonius hissed furiously at his son through gritted teeth.

Cassilda glanced at the three Warringtons almost diffidently before turning her focus back to Miranda.

"Grandfather was most displeased to hear of your expulsion, Cousin Miranda. We have all invested a great deal of time and effort into both you and the House of Bonnevie. He desires ... an accounting. Are you willing to meet with Grandfather? One-on-one, as it were?"

Miranda swallowed painfully. "If it is Grandfather's desire that I plead my case for myself and also for my family, then of course, I will honored to do so."

Cassius grew even angrier. " _She gets to see Grandfather but not me? No way! She's not going to scapegoat me and get away with it!"_

Before his parents could stop him once more, Cassius Warrington leapt to his feet. "No! The plan was mine. And it would have worked if Miranda hadn't lost her nerve in Dumbledore's office! Let  _me_  speak to Grandfather! I demand to see him!"

Several people in the room gasped aloud, even as Cassilda Selwyn fixed the impetuous boy with a piercing gaze. Along with a  _smile_  that was somehow unlike any other smile Cassius Warrington had ever seen before. Who knew that a pretty lady's smile could be so frightening? And though he could not see them, Auntie Camilla and Great-Uncle Merihem were also grinning in utter delight.

Both Antonius and Juliana moved to rise and apologize for their son's outburst, but Cassilda simply raised her right hand without taking her eyes off the boy, His parents both froze instantly. The Seneshal then held up her left hand in the general direction of Miranda without taking her hypnotic gaze off of young Cassius. She waved her fingers dismissively towards the girl, who took the meaning and swiftly sat down.

"You ...  _demand_  to see Grandfather?" Cassilda repeated almost deliriously as if she couldn't truly believe what she had heard. Then, she shook her head with what might have passed for pity to anyone who didn't actually know her. "You don't know anything about what's going on, do you Cousin Cassius?"

Before he could reply, she looked back and forth between Antonius and Juliana, like a cat trying to choose which of two captured birds she should play with. "The boy knows  _nothing_. You actually brought your fifteen-year-old son to the Abbey of Nightmares for his first visit ... and he knows  _nothing_  about who we are. About what the House of Selwyn truly is. Astonishing!"

Then, she turned back towards Cassius, who had taken the opportunity to study the faces of his kinsmen. Their expressions ranged from utterly aghast to viciously amused depending on each family member's capacity for empathy.

"Well then, Cousin Cassius," Cassilda said. "If you are so ...  _eager_  to face Grandfather's judgment, who am I to deny you?"

"NO!" Juliana shouted as she finally jumped to her feet. "Cousin Cassilda, the decision to ... to not tell Cassius about ... about how things are... it was made by my husband and I. We are the authors of our son's ignorance. We are the ones responsible for his ... lack of decorum and cunning." Then, Juliana took a deep breath before continuing. "And I, I am Miranda's aunt. It was my desire to bring the House of Bonnevie into harmony with that the House of Selwyn. That makes me responsible for any missteps on Miranda's part. Please! Allow me to be the one to meet Grandfather and plead our case to him."

"Yes," Cassilda said almost dreamily. "I'm quite sure there will be some pleading involved on someone's part. But I am deeply moved by the maternal devotion reflected in your speech." Then, she turned to look at Antonius who was still sitting in his chair utterly speechless.

"And what of you, dear Cousin Antonius. You are Lord Warrington, after all. Will you now take this moment to display your sense of chivalry and heroically demand to take the place of your wife and son?"

Antonius simply stared unblinkingly at the woman, his mouth open and quivering as if he wanted to speak but simply couldn't bring himself to utter the words.

Cassilda laughed softly. "No," she said, her contempt obvious despite her soft tones, "I thought not."

She turned to the rest of the Family. "This meeting is ended. All of you, please consider the matters we have discussed. If you have any information to share, you know how to contact us. If Grandfather has any instructions for you, they will be disseminated by the usual means."

Juliana Warrington turned stiffly to her flummoxed son and kissed him on the forehead before following Cassilda out of the room. Meanwhile, Viola Yaxley invited Miranda Bonnevie to come home with her family for the evening so she could tell the other girl all about Beauxbatons. She promised that she and Miranda would be "such great friends," a prospect that Miranda did her best to view positively. While they were talking, Auntie Camilla waddled over to Hestia and Flora Carrow.

"Well look at you two! You've grown  _so much,_  haven't you!" The two girls smiled and curtsied.

"Thank you, Auntie Camilla," they said in perfect unison. Amycus and Alecto Carrow stood behind them, beaming like a proud Mother and Father. Or perhaps a proud Aunt and Uncle. Or perhaps even proud older siblings. It was difficult to say.

"Soon, my pretties," Camilla continued. "You'll be at Hogwarts, hehehe!"

"Yes, Auntie Camilla."

"And of course, you'll both be sorted into Slytherin!"

"Of course, Auntie Camilla."

The ancient crone bent down over the young girls. "And you'll keep an eye on this little  _Harry Potter_ snot and burrow out all of his nasty little secrets, won't you my pretties?"

"Naturally, Auntie Camilla."

Camilla smiled and pinched each of their cheeks. Flora and Hestia smiled up in perfect unison at their Auntie Camilla. A painfully naive person would have said they looked angelic.

Minutes later, everyone was gone save Cassius and Antonius. The boy was still looking around as if not quite sure what had happened. The father finally rose from his chair and wandered over to the drinks cabinet in search of more scotch.

"Father?" Cassius asked once he'd finally and far too late realized he should be nervous. "What ... what's going on here?"

"Shut up, Cassius," Antonius Warrington said while pouring another drink and without even looking back at his son and heir. "Just ... just  _shut up_."

The two sat alone and in silence for nearly two hours before Juliana was returned to them. Hyades and Aldones Selwyn supported the woman by her arms as she was too weak to walk under her own power. Her skin was as white as driven snow, her eyes were glassy and unfocused, and her hair was disarranged. The sleeve of her gown had been ripped away from her right arm, and bandages were wrapped around that forearm from her wrist almost to her elbow. Very thick bandages, thankfully, so only a little bit of blood seeped through.

Antonius and a horrified Cassius took Juliana home to Warrington Manor via Floo and then put her to bed. Immediately, Antonius summoned their family healer who prescribed a regimen of potions for the lady of the house. Over the next two days, Juliana Warrington would consume four Blood-Replenishing Potions, three Draughts of Peace, and two Dreamless Sleep potions. On the third day, she had recovered enough to speak and summoned Cassius and Antonius to her bed chambers so that Antonius could bind their son to an Unbreakable Vow.

It was only then that Antonius and Juliana told their son the truth about the House of Selwyn.


	12. Back to School (pt 1)

**CHAPTER 13: Back to School (pt 1)**

__**7 August 1993  
The Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts  
9:00 a.m.**

"Cockroach Clusters," Severus Snape said with an affected irritation. When he'd first returned to Hogwarts as a professor, he'd been annoyed by Dumbledore's quirk of basing all his passwords on types of candy. Then, sometime around his second year of teaching, he finally realized that the old man's "quirk" was deliberately chosen for the purpose of reinforcing the perception that he was simply a dotty old man and not one of the most powerful wizards alive. The epiphany surprised Severus at the time, but he quickly decided it would be best to continue being irritated over the matter so that if it ever became an issue, he would have a reservoir of staged memories showing his "contempt for the doddering old fool." Dumbledore invited Snape in before he even could knock, and the Potions Master took his customary chair and declined the customary offer of a sherbet lemon.

"Well now, Severus," Dumbledore said amiably. "You asked to see me first thing this morning to discuss some matter of importance that you were unwilling to discuss over the floo. Which is actually somewhat convenient because I also have a somewhat sensitive matter that I need to discuss with you."

"Oh, Headmaster? What about?"

"Now, now, my boy. You asked for the meeting first, so it's only fair that we discuss your business first."

Snape wrinkled his nose slightly. Honestly, he didn't know how that made things "fair" or what "fairness" even meant in this context. Gryffindor sentimentality, he assumed. Or perhaps the Headmaster thought his own "sensitive matter" was more controversial than Snape's and he believed that granting a request before making one would make Snape more inclined to assist.

"Regrettably, Headmaster, oaths limit me from being too free with background information, but I have a personal request to make, and since I cannot tell you very much about what's going on, I can only hope that I have earned a measure of your trust."

"You have my complete trust, Severus," Dumbledore said earnestly.

Snape nodded his head and suppressed his instinct to sneer at such earnestness. It was never wise to sneer at one's superior, but especially so when you were about to ask him for a favor.

"As you know, I sometimes work during the summers under a pseudonym as a freelance instructor of Occlumency and Legilimency. I have been asked to perform some work related to those two skills during the coming year. I would not normally even consider accepting such employment during the school term but there are ... unusual circumstances. You see, the prospective employer was a suspected Death Eater during the War. And while I cannot at this time provide you with any detailed information, I believe that through this side job, I can gain valuable information that will be extremely helpful to your own primary agenda."

Dumbledore nodded. His " _primary agenda_ " was one of Snape's preferred euphemisms for " _finishing Voldemort for good_."

"How much time off do you need?"

The quick response caught Snape by surprise. He had not expected Dumbledore to acquiesce so easily. " _Obviously, the favor he wants from me is bigger than I'd thought._ "

"Not much," he said aloud. "Roughly one weekend every few months. I had thought that I could schedule this work during Hogsmeade weekends, since the school will be relatively empty."

"I don't foresee a problem with that. I do trust you, Severus. And if you say that this work may be of benefit to us all, you certainly have my permission to accept this opportunity so long as it does not interfere with your official duties here."

With that, the Headmaster paused as he considered how to proceed with his own request. "It is ... interesting that you should raise the issue of trust, Severus. I suppose to be fair I should ask you the same. Do you trust me?"

Snape blinked twice at the question. "I ... am not a trusting person, Headmaster. But I suppose I can say that I trust you as much as I ever have anyone else in this world."

Dumbledore considered that response for a few seconds. Then, he reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a parchment which he handed over to Snape who studied it intently. "Please do make sure not to let anyone else have access to that. To call it a terrible secret is a gross understatement."

On the parchment was what appeared to be a potions recipe. Snape's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"This is a Damocles Belby potion!" he said in amazement.

"You recognize it?" Dumbledore asked cautiously.

"No, but he did oversee my apprenticeship for nearly three years. I would recognize Master Belby's handwriting nearly as well as my own." He studied the recipe more closely. "And yet, despite having authored three monographs on the late Master Belby's work, I find that I do not recognize this potion at all, nor have I any idea what it might do." He looked again. "Aside from killing whoever drank it. Fifteen drams of monkshood is enough to poison a horse!"

"It will not be fatal to anyone, Severus. And yes, that potion is indeed an unpublished formula of Damocles Belby's invention. And since your former master passed away five years ago, I can think of no one more qualified to brew it than his most accomplished student."

Snape rolled his eyes at the flattery as the Headmaster continued. "I will require that potion to be brewed at regular intervals for the coming school year. Approximately once per month. As you can see from the instructions, brewing must commence at dawn on the day of the full moon and it takes at least eight hours to complete. I will need the finished potion delivered to me no later than two hours before sunset."

The Potions Master nodded. "But you cannot tell me what this potion is? Or anything about its function or purpose?"

"No, Severus, but I promise you it is not a matter of trust, but rather one of ... plausible deniability. The potion is not illegal per se as no one even knows of its existence save myself and ... and a few others. Nevertheless, there are a great many important people who would be profoundly disturbed if they learned of its existence, even more so if it ever became widely circulated. If it ever becomes an issue, it is my wish that you be able to honestly say that I ordered you to brew it and gave you no knowledge of its nature or purpose. Indeed, you may even wish to say that I forced you to brew the potion and made whatever threats against you that you consider most plausible. I will be happy to help you fabricate any memories you think might be useful."

Snape crooked an eyebrow. "This may well be the strangest conversation you and I have ever had."

Dumbledore laughed softly. "Perhaps."

"So you can truly tell me nothing about," he gestured distractedly towards the recipe, "all this?"

Dumbledore looked down at his desk for several seconds. "I can tell you this much. There are things I have done in the past for which I wish to make amends. This potion will help me to do so, if only in a small way."

Snape was silent for several seconds, and then he sighed in resignation. "Very well. If it is that important to you, I will brew your potion as requested. I only hope you know what you're doing." With that, he rose and left the office.

As soon as the door closed, Dumbledore pulled another parchment from his desk and read over it once more. This one was not a potions formula but rather a letter he'd received the day before, one that had flown halfway around the world to reach him. "So do I, Severus," Dumbledore muttered to himself as he started writing his response. "So do I."

* * *

__**9 August 1993  
Longbottom Manor, Sirius Black's room  
11:00 a.m.**

When Harry stepped into Sirius's room, he was surprised to find Regulus already there. The two brothers were back on speaking terms, but things remained tense between them. At the moment, Regulus was standing over Sirius's bed, handing off a succession of wands to the bedridden man who was flicking and swishing each in turn.

"Good morning, Harry!" Sirius said cheerfully, only to frown when his latest wand fizzled impotently. He tossed it onto the floor to Reg's obvious annoyance. The younger man just shook his head and handed over another wand.

"Good morning, Sirius, Regulus. Where did the spare wands come from?"

"My little brother agreed to go on a spot of grave-robbing for me," Sirius replied with a cheeky expression.

Regulus actually sputtered at that to Sirius's amusement. Harry just crooked an eyebrow. "Grave-robbing?"

"Ignore Sirius. He's just being ... himself. The wands of deceased Black family members are kept in a display case in the family vault. So far as we know, Sirius's own wand got snapped upon his conviction, though obviously neither of us are inclined to actually confirm that. So now, we're seeing if he's compatible with any other family wands."

And as soon as he'd said that, the very next wand that Sirius shook gave out an almost jubilant display of purple and blue sparks.

"Eureka!" he shouted.

"What?" the boy asked in confusion.

Sirius grinned over at him. "Eureka. It's Greek for  _'my bath water is too hot,_ " he joked, which earned him another eye roll from Regulus. "Or perhaps more accurately translated as ' _I have found it_.' And it's Uncle Alphard's old wand too! Makes sense. He was about the only member of my wretched family I ever could get along with."

"Pot. Kettle. Black." Regulus muttered as he walked around the bed to Harry. "Anyway, now that Sirius has a functioning wand – which he will no doubt use to engage in idiotic pranks and whatnot – let's get you sorted out."

"I already have a wand," Harry said with some confusion.

"Yes, one you can't use unless you're either at school or in the presence of Mad-Eye Moody. And in light of who we have locked up in Lady Augusta's basement plus your own well-known propensity for attracting trouble, I don't want you to be completely helpless if something unexpectedly awful happens while you're away from Hogwarts." He nodded in the direction of Sirius. "After all, you're not going to be able to charm  _every_  rabid dog you encounter. And besides, Sirius has some ... house-keeping matters to go over with you so you'll need a wand you can use without setting off the Trace."

And with that, Regulus reached into his jacket pocket and produced a 10-inch wand made of what looked like the purest, darkest ebony.

"Wait a minute," Harry said in confusion. "You mean all you need to get around the Trace is to just get a new wand?"

"Don't be silly. The Trace is put on the wand initially, but when it chooses you, the Trace attaches to you personally so you can't use  _any_ wand without triggering it.  _Except_  for this one."

Sirius spoke up from his bed even as he waved Uncle Alphard's wand about to get a feel for it. "You see, Harry, our great-great-great-great-grandfather Licorus Black was on the Wizengamot when the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery law was passed. He was a strong proponent of the law, mainly because he saw a way to hamstring his rivals' children while giving his own kids a leg up. Right before the law went into effect, he secretly went to Germany and hired the Gregorovichs to custom-craft a wand that could be used by a minor without triggering the Trace, so that Licorus's descendants could freely practice magic at home during the summers. The result was the  _Black Wand,_ an ebony wand with ... well, honestly, I don't know what the core is, and I'm not sure I want to find out. I do know it cost him an arm and a leg to commission."

"Quite so," said Regulus. "In today's galleons, you could buy Puddlemere United for what this wand cost. And it can't be used by just any minor either. Only someone with Black blood can even hold it safely." He paused and looked suddenly thoughtful. "You  _are_  100% certain that you're the son of James Potter, right? No chance that Lily had a bit of fun on the side that James didn't know about?"

"Regulus!" Sirius exclaimed in a scandalized voice.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Sirius," Reg said blandly. "You know as well as I how  _distinctly unpleasant_  it would be if someone without Black lineage were to even touch the Black Wand."

"It's okay," Harry interrupted before the two Black brothers got into another argument. "I've had a full genealogy work-up from Gringotts. I am definitely the son of James Potter and therefore the grandson of Dorea Black Potter."

"Fair enough." Regulus flipped the Black Wand in the air, caught it, and handed it off butt-first. As soon as Harry took the wand, an angry jet of inky black smoke shot out of the wand and then dissipated. To Harry's surprise, he actually sensed what almost felt like ...  _disdain_ emanating from the wand, as if it faintly disapproved of him but not enough to refuse his commands.

"Good," said Regulus. "You didn't die horribly."

Harry looked up sharply. "Was that a thing that could have happened?!"

"Probably not," Sirius said. "Most likely it would have blown your hand off or something. Nothing too permanent. And luckily, we even had a  _DADA instructor_  on hand if anything went wrong."

Regulus grimaced. Already, he regretted letting Lady Augusta tell Sirius about his Lockhart escapades. "Anyway, Harry, just remember.  _This wand doesn't leave the Manor_. It is  _beyond illegal_  for you to have a wand that is immune to the Trace. Getting expelled and having your own wand snapped would probably be the least of your concerns."

Harry nodded solemnly. "I understand." Then, he looked over at Sirius. "So, house-keeping matters?"

Sirius sat up, suddenly full of nervous energy. "Yeah. You see there's something that, well, I was  _supposed_  to have done back when you turned eleven, but we all know what happened there. Now I still don't fully understand what's been going on between you and James, and I promised you I wouldn't press the matter, at least for the time being.  _But_  when you were born, I swore an oath to James and Lily that I would serve as your godfather. Traditionally in our culture, when a godchild turns eleven, the godparent renews that vow directly to the child. I, obviously, couldn't do that when I was supposed to, but if you'll permit me, I'd like to do so now."

"Um, what exactly is involved in that?" Harry asked somewhat suspiciously.

"Nothing that can be a negative to you, I should think," Regulus said reassuringly. "It will not give Sirius any power over you, nor will it obligate you in any way to him."

" _But_ ," Sirius continued, "it does mean that if James can't ... or won't act as your father, I will be honor bound to do so. Furthermore – and I can't believe I'm even suggesting this as a possibility – if James ever does kick you out of House Potter or if you decide to leave on your own, then for as long as I'm alive, you'll be considered an honorary member of House Black and even be able to use that as your surname. If  _that_  happens – and assuming I can get out of my current legal limbo – I could even adopt you as my son and heir. You know, if you wanted that. Completely your decision that." He barked out a laugh. "Mind you, it would be good to have someone reliable who could take over the family's affairs if something happened to me."

At that, he gave a big stinkeye to Regulus who was unimpressed. "Do as you want, Sirius, it won't bother me. In case you've forgotten, I'm an independently wealthy best-selling author."

Harry chuckled. "Okay, Sirius. I'm in. And I would be honored to formally accept you as my godfather. Now what do I do?"

"Nothing terribly complicated. Just hold the Black Wand out and let me touch my wand to it." The two crossed their wands, and Sirius began his oath. "I, Sirius Orion Black, Lord of the Ancient and Noble House of Black ..."

* * *

_**Thirty minutes later ...** _

His business with Sirius complete, Harry returned to his room in an unusually good mood. He was still getting to know the mercurial Sirius Black, but the man certainly seemed bent on serving as the father figure Harry had never had before. Granted, Black could still let him down somehow – most grownups had, after all – but it felt good to have someone else in his corner, even if it was an escaped prisoner.

Harry removed the Black Wand from the pocket into which he'd placed it and set it down on his nightstand. He took a few steps away in the direction of his writing desk only to suddenly spin around and thrust his open hand towards the Black Wand.

" _ **ACCIO WAND!**_ " he exclaimed. The Black Wand didn't even twitch and seemed as immune to the boy's attempt to wandlessly summon it as his regular holly and phoenix feather wand had been so far. Harry made a sour face and turned back to the writing desk to start his homework for the day. Moody had given him a rather long list of exotic spells to review, after all.

* * *

_**Meanwhile at 12 Grimmauld Place ...** _

With a soft pop, Dobby arrived in the entry hall to 12 Grimmauld Place. He sniffed delicately and then grinned in delight. There would be  _a lot_  to clean here. Softly, he padded down the hallway. As he neared the painting of Walburga Black, the insane old witch started screaming behind her curtain. Dobby silenced here with a snap of his fingers. He would not be able to do so as easily when Master Harry and the other wizards came here, but for the moment, he would enjoy the quiet. There was another pop from a room nearby. Dobby moved to investigate and found another house elf waiting for him.

" _Ah yes,_ " he thought. " _This must be poor Kreacher. The elf driven mad by his owners. Dobby can sympathize._ "

"Dobby, house elf to the Great Wizard Harry Potter, bids you good morning," Dobby said cheerfully. "Dobby assumes you are the one called Kreacher."

"Not  _the one called Kreacher_!" the other elf snarled. "Kreacher IS Kreacher!"

Dobby shrugged diffidently. He rather doubted that was entirely the case, but he was not here to heal the broken servant of House Black, only to assist him in cleaning up 12 Grimmauld Place. Master Harry's friend Neville would be returning to Longbottom Manor before too long. And while it was agreed that the captured Death Eaters could sit and rot in the Longbottom dungeons (which Neville didn't even know about), Sirius and Regulus would need to relocate, and their family home was the only plausible option. Unfortunately, it lacked dungeons for holding the Death Eaters, who would have to remain behind. It was a source of great amusement to Sirius that the fine upstanding Longbottoms had an actual dungeon in their basement but the dark sinister Blacks did not.

"To be honest, Dobby does not actually care. My master and his dogfather have commanded Dobby to come here and help with cleaning up this dwelling. Or if necessary, to undertake the cleaning by Dobby's own self if Kreacher is not up to the task."

Kreacher gave out a low hiss. "The House of Black is Kreacher's to maintain."

Dobby looked around the filthy, cobweb-infested room. "Obviously."

"Grrr. Kreacher will not clean up this house so that it can be defiled by filthy, stinking, unclean blood traitors. Kreacher is loyal to the true House of Black. Let the blood traitors come. Kreacher will end them in their sleep."

Dobby was silent for a moment and then spoke in a soft but precise voice. "Dobby sincerely hopes that was not intended as a threat from the Kreacher elf towards Master Harry and his dogfather. If it was, Dobby might obliged to respond in kind. The Kreacher elf is not the first elf to have threatened the Great and Wonderful Wizard Harry Potter in Dobby's presence. Dobby knew another elf not long ago who also wished Master Harry harm."

He took a step towards Kreacher and narrowed his eyes. "Dobby broke that elf, left him undone, and sent him back to The Other Place. Nothing was left behind but leaves and twigs. Will the Kreacher Elf learn from Dobby's counsel? Because Dobby suspects that his master would be quite relieved to never see or hear from Kreacher again. It is a terrible thing to return to The Other Place when it not yet time. The point loss alone ..."

"Bah!" Kreacher exclaimed dismissively, but it was clear that Dobby's words troubled him. After a moment, he made a nasty face but then nodded in submission. "Kreacher will not harm the filthy Halfbloods and blood traitors, nor even condemn them. Kreacher will remain out of sight. And perhaps stay drunk on butterbeer until the Dark Lord comes and kills the Halfbloods and blood traitors."

"Well, that will do, Dobby supposes. Now, if the Kreacher Elf will excuse Dobby, there is much cleaning to be done."

Kreacher hissed again, and then apparated away. Dobby clucked his tongue and then started looking around for a mop and bucket.

* * *

__**10 August 1993  
Three Broomsticks Inn and Pub, Room 3, Hogsmeade  
Inside Mad-Eye Moody's Trunk**

Harry moved cautiously down the ladder into the trunk as he pondered Alastor Moody's instructions. When he arrived at Moody's rooms for his regular tutoring session, the former auror cast the spell that authorized his young charge to legally use his wand for the next few hours. Then, Moody descended into his labyrinthine trunk after telling Harry to count to thirty before following. He also said that he would not target Harry with any spells until after the boy had cast his first one. During his silent countdown, Harry considered what he knew and what he'd been directed to study and concluded that Moody would be laying traps and altering the environment inside the trunk to his advantage. That wouldn't violate his promise to refrain from targeting Harry directly.

Harry's suspicions were confirmed when he made it to the bottom of the ladder. The level of the trunk that Moody had prepared for him was filled with a thick impenetrable fog, almost certainly the product of the Fumos Charm. The spell created a smokescreen that the caster could see through easily but which would completely obscure the vision of anyone else in the area of effect. Harry could dispel it with a Ventus Maximus or an overpowered Finite Incantatem, but doing so would count as his first spell and would leave him wide open to attack before the mist cleared enough to spot his opponent. Slowly, Harry crept forward, listening intently for any sounds that might give a way Moody's location. From experience, he knew the room he was now in to be a large open training area with plenty of room to move around in even if he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He also knew because of how Fumos worked that while he couldn't see Moody, the man himself could see Harry clearly.

Then, from somewhere about twenty feet away and to his left, Harry heard a soft creak from the floor. He decided to make his move. " _ **FUMOS MAXIMUS!**_ " he cried out before dropping and rolling out of the way just as an Expelliarmus passed through the area where he'd been standing. He continued to roll, dodging spellfire the whole way as his own magical fog filled the room. If he was right about the nature of Fumos, there would now be two overlapping smokescreens in place. He couldn't see through Moody's, and Moody couldn't see through his. The odds would be even.

" _Unless that damned eye of his can see through my fog,_ " Harry thought bitterly. But after a second, the spellfire stopped, which indicated that Moody's eye couldn't pierce Harry's own Fumos. Still on the ground, Harry whispered the incantation for the Muffliato Charm that Hermione had gotten from Snape. From the far side of the room, he heard Moody cast another Disarming Jinx in his general direction, but it went wide. If Harry's understanding of Muffliato was correct, Moody's efforts to listen for him would ensure that he would only hear a buzzing sound from an indeterminate direction. Hopefully, the ex-auror was now effectively deaf as well as blind. Slowly, Harry rose to his feet. No spells came his way but he could just barely make out the sounds of movement somewhere on the far side of the room.

Harry smiled as an idea came to him. " _If it worked against a Voldemort-possessed Ron, maybe it will work just as well here._ " He reached into his pocket and pulled out a galleon and tossed it towards the far side of the room. It clattered on the floor and a split second later, an Expelliarmus shot out in that direction. The flash of light was barely visible through the fog, but it was enough to give away Moody's position.

" _ **AVIS OPPUGNO!**_ " Instantly, a flock of birds blasted out of Harry's wand and flew towards Moody. The instant the birds left the protection of Harry's Muffliato, their squawks alerted Moody who quickly cast a Vestimentarum shield around himself. Suddenly, the area around the man was lit up by blue electrical sparks as the conjured birds impacted against the shield Harry had learned the year before in "Lockhart's" first class. " _ **EXPELLIARMUS!**_ " cried the boy, his arm pointed at the heart of the electrical light show.

Unfortunately, before he could complete the Disarming Jinx, there was a soft pop from the area under assault by the birds, followed by a second pop a millisecond later right behind the boy. Harry turned as fast as he could, but it wasn't fast enough. Moody's own wordless Disarming Jinx hit him before he could identify the man's location, and his wand flew from his hand. Seconds later, Moody's Finite had cleared the room of both fog banks and the flock of angry birds, leaving nothing but a dejected boy and his tutor.

"Right!" Moody said. "Critique time. Why didn't you use the Supersensory Charm?"

"Because it wouldn't have let me spot you before you took me down," Harry grumbled as he took back his wand. "Also, if you'd realized I had the Supersensory Charm up, you could have just shot off some fireworks and deafened me."

The ex-auror nodded. "Exactly right. I was waiting for that and you never fell for it. Well, that's it for the critique."

Harry did a double-take. "Um, it is? Only  _one_  negative comment?"

"Yep. Well done, laddy!" Moody exclaimed jovially. "Very well done, indeed!"

"It didn't feel very well done, sir, since I lost for about the thirtieth time," Harry said.

"Aw don't be such a sourpuss. You kept your head and used the spells you knew creatively and innovatively. You had a good plan and you executed it, a plan that was as good or better than most of the auror trainees demonstrated when I used to put them through this same exercise. It's not your fault that I had an insurmountable advantage."

Harry thought about that for a second and then groaned. "Your eye  _can_  see through Fumos. You could see me clearly the whole time."

"Yep."

"In other words, I never actually had a chance at all."

"Not really. There are upper level glamours and illusions that can fool my eye, but you probably won't be exposed to them until 6th year. Or perhaps sooner. You've already got a pretty decent doppelganger spell. Maybe some independent research into illusions is in order. The point of today's exercise, however, is to fairly evaluate your progress, and that's hardly something I could do if I couldn't even see you."

The boy nodded but then looked pensive. "Mr. Moody, based on what you've seen of my work so far ... do you think I could possibly pass my OWLs early? As in, next summer? Not with any O's obviously, but at least Acceptables?"

"And why in Merlin's name would you want to take your OWLs ... Oh, wait, never mind. You're looking to get emancipated?" Moody frowned almost angrily. "Are things that bad with you and your old man?"

"No, no," Harry said shaking his head. "To be honest, things are better than I ever thought they'd be a year ago. But, well, you never know what the future holds. Constant vigilance, and all that."

Moody snorted. "You really lose the effect if you don't bellow that out at the top of your lungs. And if you're serious about sitting your OWLs early, then yes, I think it's definitely possible. I'd be willing to work with you over the school year if you want."

"When? And how?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Hogsmeade weekends, of course. Come on, I'll take you on a tour of the village. As you'll see for yourself, once you've had Madam Rosmerta's shepherd's pie and eaten your fill of Honeydukes candy, the village quickly loses its charms, at least until you're older and can actually go on dates and such. When you come to the village this term, take care of your business early, and I'll work in a three-to-five hour tutoring session that will be specifically geared to your OWLs."

Harry grinned excitedly. He was still grinning when he and his tutor climbed out of trunk and headed down into the common room of the Three Broomsticks. His smile faded into a far less happy expression, however, as he and Moody headed out onto the streets of Hogsmeade while trying diligently to ignore the legion of Dementors that floated in eerie silence above the Forbidden Forest barely a mile away.

* * *

_**11 August 1993  
from the Daily Prophet Society Page** _

_As faithful readers of this page know, a minor scandal erupted when Tiberius Nott of the Noble and Ancient House of Nott, using an obscure and nearly forgotten ritual, banished his son Theodore from the House of Nott and took away his very name. There has been much speculation about what Theo No-Name might have done to warrant such a punishment, but one possibility that has risen its nasty head is that the outcast might have been cast out for never having been a Nott at all! Interestingly, it seems that the eviction of the boy in question roughly coincides with another remarkable scandal – the unprecedented divorce by Narcissa Black-Malfoy of her husband, Wizengamot leader Lucius Malfoy. Rumors abound that before entering into marriage with the youngest daughter of House Black, the future Lord Malfoy had been living sinfully in Paris with a young woman by the name of Christina Fenwick. The same Christina Fenwick who entered into an arranged marriage with Lord Nott barely two months after Lucius Malfoy's own marriage to Narcissa Black following a whirlwind courtship. Indeed, the same Christina Fenwick who was the mother of Lord Nott's two children, the younger of whom is the outcast Theo No-Name!_

_Connections, connections, connections. What can it all mean?_ _This reporter doesn't like to speculate or offer innuendo. We here at the Daily Prophet just present the facts and let our readers decide for themselves._

* * *

_**Malfoy Manor  
9:00 a.m** _

Lucius folded the paper and set it to one side, a look of smoldering anger marring his patrician features. He toyed with the idea of arranging the Skeeter witch's death but then squashed it. Aside from the pettiness such a move would demonstrate, it wouldn't even solve the real problem. Rita Skeeter would never have printed something as salacious as that and which implicated both Tiberius Nott and himself unless she'd been put up to it by some other more powerful faction. He would investigate first and then revenge himself on the appropriate party.

As he considered his options, Lucius was distracted by Draco entering the room for breakfast. With Narcissa out of the house, Lucius had dispensed with the thirty-foot-long dining table, and breakfast was usually had in the sunroom.

"Good morning, father," Draco said as he sat down to eat.

"Good morning, Draco," Lucius said after a brief pause of indecision. "Before you start your breakfast ... we need to talk."

* * *

__**12 August 1993  
1:00 pm (GMT)  
Part of a three-way conference call connecting London, Cardiff, and Hamburg**

It was a lazy Friday afternoon, and the three Hogwarts students each sat in their respective bedrooms. In London (Chiswick, to be precise), Kevin Entwhistle was making his way through a particularly challenging level of  _Legend of Zelda_ on his Game Boy, his wand safely stored away so that no ambient magic might damage the device. In Cardiff, Sue Li was sitting on her bed painting her toenails black while listening to Robert Smith on her radio reassure her that if it was Friday, he was in love. And in Hamburg, Germany, Anthony Goldstein was reviewing passages from a religious text and making personal notes, a kippah in Ravenclaw colors perched on his head.

Luckily, the distance between the three and their competing activities did not prevent them from talking freely, for they had the benefit of three-way international calling with speakerphones, a mode of communication that would have baffled the majority of Pureblood wizards who couldn't have even recognized a phone let alone known how to use one.

"Seriously, Ant," said Kevin as he tried to maneuver Link past another danger. "I still don't even see why you want me involved in your little project. You know I don't have the grades you guys do."

"Your grades are perfectly solid, Kevin," Anthony replied. "And as a Muggleborn, you're more grounded in Muggle technology than the typical Hogwarts student, even Halfbloods like Sue and me."

"Speak for yourself, Anthony," Sue said irritably as she tried not to spill her nail polish on her bed. " _I've_  been spending the summer learning to code."

Anthony scoffed. "Well, I'm sure that will be very helpful when you try to use magic around your computer and it melts. How far have you gotten?"

Sue sighed. "Not very. It's been a busy summer. In addition to witchcraft and computer programming, I'm considering becoming a Goth chick."

"Are you now," said Kevin with some amusement. "A Chinese-British computer geek Goth witch? Isn't that a bit much?"

"Oh shut up, Entwhistle. You're just jealous that you don't have anyone who speaks to you the way Trent Reznor does to me."

"Hey, I'm distantly related to the bassist for The Who. Does that count?"

There was a brief shocked pause from the other two. "Are you really?!" Anthony said in amazement.

"Yeah. Well, I think so. I'm from his hometown and we're both named Entwhistle. My dad says we're like third cousins or something. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. But we've drifted from the topic, which is 'why do you want me to join your  _experimental research group_?' Didn't you Claws get enough of that with Lockhart last year while I was out running laps around the castle at the bloody crack of dawn?"

"Honestly, Kevin," said Anthony. "We want you because you can bring a purely Muggle perspective to our work, while Sue and I were both raised in a mixed Muggle-Wizarding background. And also, you're a Puff, and you can keep us flighty and eccentric Ravenclaws grounded when we get too far out there."

Kevin snorted. "So why don't you just get Justin?"

"Mmm. I dunno about Justin," Sue Li said doubtfully. "He's been hanging with a bad crowd."

"Oh come on, Sue," Anthony said irritably. "That 'bad crowd' consists of exactly one Slytherin who actually started acting nicer while under Justin's influence. Well, he  _was_  acting nicer but his father is sending him off to Durmstrang, so he'll probably come back as some kind of magical skinhead."

Kevin sniggered despite himself at the thought of Draco Malfoy with a shaved head and tattoos and dressed like a football hooligan. "Um-hmm. So what about Harry Potter or Hermione Granger? He's Muggle-raised and she's Muggleborn and they're both at the top of our class."

Anthony flipped a page as he spoke. "Harry says he's interested in helping but has a very heavy academic year ahead of him, though he was cagey about what extra work he's doing. Hermione, on the other hand, was very open about the fact that she's basically taking  _all_  the electives, plus she's starting a club of her own."

" _All_  the electives?" Kevin exclaimed. "Can you even do that? You know, without using time travel? ... Actually,  _can_  you time travel with magic?"

"No," Sue said with authority. "Time travel is impossible due to the Fifth Principle Exception to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "... Of course it is. Have I mentioned how outclassed I feel academically with you two Claws?"

"Repeatedly," said Anthony. "And you shouldn't be. Sue's dad is a Transfiguration master, so she's ahead of us all in that area. Anyway, Granger just has a very complicated schedule with no breaks or free periods for the whole year. Honestly, I'm afraid she'll have a breakdown before Christmas."

Kevin spat out a curse as poor Link died once again. "Nah. She'll handle it, or else her friends will stage an intervention and get her to drop some classes. I mean, we can literally take an elective the whole year and drop it without penalty any time before the final, right?"

"So long as you take exams in at least two electives, yes. By the way, Anthony, what's this club she wants to start?"

"I'm not entirely sure, Sue, but it's something to do with protesting against abuses of mind control magic. I think she's upset about what happened to that Theo No-Name kid."

"I don't blame her!" Kevin exclaimed somewhat angrily. "Bad enough this one particular kid is getting screwed over by his own dad, but why is it no one else is up in arms about how magic can be used to brainwash half the country?"

"I hear you," said Sue. "I nearly got into an argument over it with Cho Chang. She didn't even know this Theo kid's name, and now she's ready to believe all sorts of rumors about how awful he is. Everyone I know whose family has any sort of Ministry or Wizengamot connection is like that. It's kinda creepy actually."

Kevin paused to think for a moment. "You know, if opposition to this Sanction thing is going to be mainly a Muggleborn or Muggle-raised thing anyway, it seems to me there should be some overlap between Granger's group and what you guys want to accomplish. Why don't we just join her group and then get her to help you with your experiments as a condition to staying in?"

"That's very cunning, Kevin!" Sue said mischievously. "Are you sure you're not a Slytherin in disguise?"

Kevin snorted as if affronted. "Hufflepuffs can be cunning when we need to be, Sue. We're just not prats about it. Anyway, we can talk about this more at school. What do you guys have planned from now until the 1st?"

"Enjoying black fingernails and eyeliner and functioning CD players while I still can," said Sue.

"Homework," said Anthony rather grumpily.

Kevin laughed. "The Ravenclaw hasn't finished his homework yet? You're slacking off, Ant!"

"Different homework, actually. I have to read from the Torah this Saturday as part of my bar mitzvah. And in front of all four of my grandparents plus a whole synagogue of Jewish Muggles. I'm more nervous about it than I ever was about answering Snape's questions in Potions class."

"You're having your bar mitzvah!" Sue said excitedly. "That's so cool! The Brit-Chinese community doesn't do  _anything_  like that, Magical or Muggle. I mean, maybe a Sweet Sixteen, but that's another three years from now."

"Honestly, I don't know much about what a bar mitzvah is beyond what I've seen on TV," said Kevin. "I'm Anglican, which in my family means we go to services on Christmas morning and my grandad stands and salutes during the Queen's speech, but that's it. Actually, I never even realized you were Jewish. I've never seen you wear, um, that hat thing."

"Kippah. Or yarmulke, depending on who you're talking to. And my family is Reform Jewish, so I only wear it when I'm praying, reading the Torah, or actually in a synagogue. I almost never wore it at Hogwarts." He paused and frowned. "Actually to be precise, I'm  _Magical_  Reform Jewish, which makes things even more complicated.

"Still, I know bar mitzvah a big deal for you, so congratulations!"

"Thanks ... I guess. My parents have never been terribly observant, but the bar mitzvah is important to my grandparents, and I want to make them happy, so ..." He trailed off but then changed the subject..

"Any way, when we get on the Hogwarts Express, find our cabin. Nana Goldberg is making a truly ridiculous amount of food for my bar mitzvah party, which none of my school friends will be coming to because it'll be in  _Hamburg._ " Anthony practically groaned at that. He'd hated his parents move to Germany and missed Britain terribly during the summers. "But on the bright side, I'll be bringing plenty of leftovers."

* * *

__**14 August 1993  
A fishing boat on Lake Jindabyne  
New South Wales, Australia**

"COME ON YOU BLOODY BASTARD!" yelled Buck MacMillan as he struggled against the massive trout that was on the other end of his fishing line. For a brief instant, he thought about simply pulling out his wand and summoning the blasted thing, but no, that would be cheating. Finally, with a roar and one final pull, the trout flew out of the lake and landed on Buck's boat. The retired auror was delighted – the thing must have weighed at least twenty-five pounds.

But then, Buck's delight was replaced by a twitch of recognition at the sound of something moving fast towards his location. He whirled around, his wand instantly appearing in his hand and pointed at the figure flying towards him on a broom. The rider slowed on approach though, and when Buck could make out the traditional auror's robe, he lowered the wand but did not put it away. Seconds later, Senior Auror Nguyen Park landed competently if not exactly gracefully on the fishing boat.

"Auror Nguyen! This is a surprise. And here I thought you hated brooms."

"I do, but I wasn't about to apparate to a boat in the middle of a great big lake. The sheer embarrassment if I'd been off by even a few feet would have been the end of me." She stepped forward and gave her friend and former mentor a hug. "And I think you're allowed to call me Park now that you're off the force."

Buck laughed and returned the friendly hug. "Pshaw. I called you Park when I was  _on_ the force. You know I was never one for formalities. Speaking of which, you want a beer?"

"No thanks."

"Suit yourself," he replied as he walked over to a metal chest upon which a permanent cooling charm had been cast and removed a can for himself. "So what brings you out here to interrupt my fishing vacation."

"You're retired, Buck. You've even sold the bar. Every day is a vacation for you." Nguyen paused and looked away for a second. "I need a favor, and I think you're the person for it."

"What sort of favor?"

"The British DMLE has asked us to send someone over their to act as an advisor on some law enforcement-related matters. We don't really have anyone to spare at the moment, so I thought of you."

"Did you now?" Buck asked suspiciously. "And why did I pop to the top of your list?"

"Frankly, Buck," she answered somewhat cautiously, "I think you might have a bit of a personal interest. Do you remember that British author who wrote that book about the Wagga Wagga incident? The one that got most of the facts wrong and painted him to be a big hero?"

Buck took a long swig of Foster's. "I seem to recall him."

"Well, his name's Gilderoy Lockhart. And  _apparently_ , a few months ago, he confessed to a bunch of crimes and then used the Tabula Rasa to lobotomize himself. Or so the Brits believe. They want someone to come over and confirm whether it was really Tabula Rasa and advise them on whether it's reversible or not."

"You and I both know that Tabula Rasa is irreversible."

"Yes, Buck. That's why it's a capital offense to use it without official sanction." Buck didn't respond, and Nguyen started to get angry. "Dammit, Buck! Fine. Let's stop beating around the bush. We both know that I covered for you and Rusty back in 1985. And I'm  _still_  covering for you both. That's why I recommended you for this assignment when the order came down from the Chief. But if you won't go, the Chief will send someone else. And  _who knows_  what sorts of rocks that someone is going to kick over!"

Buck grimaced but finally nodded his head. "Alright. Tell the Chief I'll go. I need a few days to get my affairs in order here since I don't know how long I'll be gone, but tell him I'll owl him about international portkey arrangements as soon as possible."

Nguyen exhaled. "Good. Thanks, Buck." Without another word, she mounted her broom and took off. Once she was a half-mile away, there was a loud crack as she apparated away. Buck finished his beer in solitude.

" _Dammit Rusty_ ," he thought ruefully. " _What the hell kind of mess have you gotten into now?"_

* * *

__**14 August 1993  
Longbottom Manor  
9:00 p.m.**

Harry stared down at the Marauders' Map cautiously. It was an amazing piece of magic, one that still showed the movements of people in the castle even though Longbottom Manor was hundreds of miles away. But that wasn't the most remarkable of its enchantments, for the Map contained not one but four artificial personalities based upon the Marauders themselves, all apparently frozen in memory and emotional development at some point around their Fifth Year. And after several weeks of discussion, the Marauders finally agreed that it would be possible for Harry to psychically enter the Map and talk directly with those artificial personalities and even to relive some of their memories. He was a little skittish about the idea, particularly since Jim had told him that Tom Riddle had nearly trapped his mind inside the Diary through a similar process. Still, this would be his best opportunity to learn more about the Marauders and especially his own father. At this point, Harry figured that if he would ever learn the source of James Potter's irrational hatred and fear of Harry being a Slytherin, this might be the best way to do it.

"Okay, guys," he said to the Map. "I'm ready. Let's do it."

" __ **Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are all eager to start as well.  
We'll see you on the other side.  
Well, one of us at least."**

Harry frowned at that last cryptic remark, but before he could respond, there was a glowing light that sprang forth from the Map that engulfed his face and body. He had a sudden sensation of falling forward into a deep hole, but it soon passed. Harry shook his head and looked around. He was in what seemed to be a Hogwarts common room, Gryffindor's if the crimson wallpaper with a lion motif were any indication. The boy looked around for the four young Marauders, but he was surprised and a bit concerned to see only one. Specifically, the only one that he really didn't want to be alone with while stuck in an enchanted map of dubious provenance.

"Wotcher, Harry Potter!" exclaimed a portly fifteen-year-old boy in Gryffindor robes and bearing an unfortunate mullet. "Peter Pettigrew's the name! Glad to meet you!"

Harry swallowed and then put on his best fake smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1. Lots of comments after last chapter on FF.Net theorizing that the Selwyns (or Grandfather, at least) are vampires. I will offer two spoilers. (1) Grandfather Selwyn is a vampire. (2) The fact that Grandfather Selwyn is a vampire is not remotely the most disturbing thing about the House of Selwyn. :)


	13. Back to School pt 2

**CHAPTER 14: Back to School (pt 2)**

__**14 August 1993  
9:00 p.m.  
Inside the Marauder's Map**

" _Hullo there, Harry Potter!" exclaimed a young portly fellow in Gryffindor robes and bearing an unfortunate mullet. "Peter Pettigrew's the name! And I'm so looking forward to us being the best of friends."_

_Harry swallowed and then put on his best fake smile._

"Hello ... Uncle Pete," Harry said with as much cheerfulness as he could muster. Pettigrew grinned broadly.

" _Uncle_  Pete!" he exclaimed. "I like that. I'm glad to see that I'm still a part of James's life so many years after graduation."

"Well of course you are," Harry replied easily. "Though I'm a bit surprised to see just you here and not the other three."

"Yeah, about that." Peter rubbed the back of his neck in what seemed to be genuine embarrassment. To Harry's surprise, he sensed none of the oily manipulative nature that the real Pettigrew radiated. This psychic impression of the younger Pettigrew actually seemed bashful and sincere, so far at least.

"We talked it over," he continued. "Well, for what passes for ' _talking things over_ ' when you're copies of four people stuck in a Map. But one of those copies is based on Remus Lupin who is the brains behind this operation, and he is of the opinion that it's too dangerous for all four of us to interact with you like this at the same time. Says it might overload the map's " _mnemonic architecture_ ," whatever the heck that means. You see the Map updates us with new memories every time one of the Real Us activates or deactivates it. James was the last person to do so before it was confiscated sometime after Halloween of our Sixth Year. Sirius was the one before him and then Remus. My personality hasn't been updated since early in our Fifth Year, so interacting with me will require slightly less magic than the others and might be a bit safer."

"Okay," Harry said uncertainly. "I don't understand that very well, but if that's what ... Uncle Remus said, I'll go along with it."

Peter smirked but not maliciously. "Just between us, there's another reason they sent me in first."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he said with a chuckle. "Of the four of us, apparently I'm the only one without any dark, dirty secrets that I'm afraid to share."

Despite himself, Harry did a double-take. "Is that a fact?"

Peter nodded. "James is your dad. Sirius is your godfather. Neither one of them knows what sort of men they'll grow up to be in the future, and they're very worried that their grown-up selves would be embarrassed by how their Map personalities portray them. As for Remus, well, I don't know if you know, but he has ... a situation. And he's worried that you don't know about his ... situation and that finding out from us might embarrass his older self. Or possibly cause something worse than embarrassment." He paused. "So do you? Know about his ... you know?"

"I know he has an undisclosed medical condition. That's it really."

"Fair enough. I'll let the others know not to discuss that with you until after your Dad or one of us out in the real world has told you the truth."

Harry nodded. "I have to say ... Uncle Pete. You're ... not what I was expecting."

"Oh? How so?" Then, Pettigrew started. "Wait! Don't answer that! Remus also said that as much as possible you should avoid telling us anything about what happens after our last resets. He thought it might be damaging. Again, better safe than sorry."

"Noted."

Peter looked at him quizzically. "No offense, sport, but you seem ... sharper than James. Lily's influence?"

"I thought you didn't want me to say anything about the future."

"About  _our_  futures. Talking about  _your_ life is fine so long as you don't give us any big surprises. You've already spilled the beans that James and Lily  _finally_  hook up and that James becomes Chief Auror, both of which caused Map-James to go all funny for a while, but he's better now. But try to avoid major plot developments forward." With that, Pettigrew moved over to an easy chair in front of a big fireplace in the Map's rendition of the Gryffindor Common Room. He gestured for Harry to take the seat across from him.

"Butterbeer?" he inquired before snapping his fingers. Instantly, two icy cold butterbeers appeared on the little table separating the two chairs.

Harry looked at the beverage suspiciously. "How is it possible for me to drink in here?"

"Technically, you won't be drinking it. You'll just be reliving my memory of the best butterbeer I ever had."

Cautiously, Harry took a sip, and to his surprise, it not only tasted like butterbeer but noticeably better and more refreshing that prior butterbeers he'd had. Peter smirked at him.

"So, can I ask you a question, Harry? I promise I'll keep it in confidence and not share the answer with the other Marauders."

"Guess it depends on the question ... Uncle Pete."

The other boy chuckled. "Okay then. Just between you and me ...  _are you_  a Slytherin?"

Harry laughed out loud to disguise his momentary surprise over the question. "That was just a joke, Uncle Pete."

Peter shook his head. "I compliment you on your mask, Harry. But that was the wrong answer. If you were really James's Gryffindor son, you'd have been angry at the suggestion, and anyway, it's obvious from your reactions so far that the Gryffindor Common Room is not a familiar location for you. If you were a Hufflepuff, you'd be too honest to consider hiding your Sorting. If you were a Ravenclaw, you'd have proudly announced it, claiming that it was all Lily's influence. Only a Slytherin would have been evasive about his Sorting the way you've been."

He put up a hand to reassure the boy.

"And I meant what I said, Harry. None of the others will hear about your Sorting from me. And to be honest, I'd be cautious about them hearing of it from  _you_. While I certainly hope that James and Sirius have grown out of their attitudes about Slytherin House, their fifteen-year-old versions definitely have not. It's remarkable in a way, because the two great obsessions of James Charlus Potter are Lily Evans and pranking Slytherins. And if he could just let go of the latter, he'd have the former in a heartbeat."

Harry nodded. "And Remus?"

"Normally, I'd say he's safe to talk to about it, but at the time of his last reset, he was in a bit of a crush phase towards Sirius so he might blab."

"Crush ... phase?"

"I don't mean sexual, though Sirius is the first one of us to lose his virginity, a fact that he still brags about endlessly. But everyone who interacts with Sirius eventually develops some sort of crush on him.  _Everyone._ "

"Even you?"

"Yeah, but luckily for me, it was when we were Second Years so I worked through it early. Now, I get to sit back and watch in amusement as other people go through the phase of getting dewey-eyed and compliant whenever Sirius grins at them and compliments their appearance and then asks for a 'little favor.' It's rather amusing once you're not the one affected by it. I wondered once if it was a magical gift, but now, I just think it's plain old charm but to the nth degree."

Harry took a sip of butterbeer. "You're very perceptive, aren't you."

Pettigrew shrugged. "That's what I bring to the group. James and Sirius are both rich, good-looking, and popular. Remus is brilliant and well-liked – which, by the way, is  _not_  the same thing as popular. And I ... notice things."

"Like what."

Pettigrew grew pensive. "Like the fact that when you first showed up here, you were visibly disturbed to see me. You covered it up fast, which was another thing that made me think you couldn't possibly be a Gryffindor. But I saw it. And it wasn't just disappointment that your father and godfather weren't here to greet you. You were unhappy to see  _me._ Almost alarmed, in fact."

Harry took a big swig of butterbeer to give himself time to think. To his surprise, Pettigrew – even  _this_  version of Pettigrew – was incredibly observant. Harry had not been actively occluding when he entered the Map because he hadn't thought it necessary, but his passive Occlumency should have allowed him to ingratiate himself to Map-Peter with ease. And yet this copy of Pettigrew, one mentally only a few years older than himself, had seen through him instantly.

"It's not something I can talk about without getting into what's happening in your future. But I can tell you in perfect honesty that as of my Third Year, you're probably closer to my father than either Sirius or Remus."

Peter smiled at that and looked visibly relieved. "Thank you, Harry. That really means a lot to me. Honestly, I've been afraid for some time that James and Sirius would drop me as soon as we graduated. I'm please to find out I'd misjudged them."

"Why would you think that?" Harry said, desperate to change the subject.

Peter shrugged. "We're friends at school, but I don't exactly travel in their social circles. There's no Ancient and Noble House of Pettigrew. My family came to Britain from Norway in the 1940's, refugees from the Grindelwald War. My father died when I was three. I was raised by my mother who ... well, let's just say she had some health issues."

"What kind of health issues?" the boy asked cautiously.

Peter looked away. "Mental health," he finally said. "It's not important. Just something I had to ... to grow up with. But my point is that I know after graduation I won't have much connection with Prongs and Padfoot." He paused. "Do you know those names? What they mean?" he asked suddenly, as if afraid he'd revealed a secret.

"I know the names and I have some idea about the significance. We don't have to go any further than that."

Pettigrew relaxed. "Good, good. Anyway, I don't want you or anyone to feel sorry for me. Mother and I weren't wealthy, but it's not like we were living in some hovel in Knockturn Alley. We had a respectable two-story townhouse in Upper Appleby and lived off of a small amount of gold that my father left us. Mother couldn't work due to her ... Anyway, we lived okay."

"Still, it must have gotten old being friend with James and Sirius given how much money they could flash around."

The other boy smiled wanly. "At times. I tried not to let it get to me though."

"So how did you end up friends, anyway?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't really know if we were friends at the start. To be honest, I was more like their minion at first, always eager to suck up to them because I was afraid I might get bullied by them if I didn't. Luckily, I had a teacher in Second Year who gave me a good swift kick in the pants. My grades got better and I started to gain confidence. By the end of that year, I was an equal member of the group. It's October of Fifth Year for me now, and as of the end of last year, my grades are actually better than James and Sirius, though they're still ahead of me on the practicals. I'm not ashamed to admit that when it comes to magic, all three of the others top me. Moony's a genius, Prongs is a Transfiguration prodigy, and Padfoot ... well, I don't now how he does it, but I'm convinced he's cheating by practicing during the summers somehow without getting busted by the Trace." He laughed. "Guess that just means I'll have to be creative if I want get ahead."

" _Well,"_ Harry thought,  _"creative is_ _one_ _word for what you end up doing._ "

"So who was the teacher who inspired you?" he asked aloud.

Peter smiled fondly. "Why don't I show you!" He snapped his fingers again, and the room blurred around Harry. After a few seconds of disorientation, the two of them were now sitting on the back row of the DADA classroom. It seemed the class had just been dismissed, and Harry noticed pint-sized versions of the four Marauders standing up to leave, along with (to Harry's amusement) twelve-year-old versions of Lily Evans and  _Severus Snape_! Even more amusingly, Snape seemed to be carrying Lily's books for her. Before the Marauders could exit, though, the DADA professor called out to Peter and asked him to stay behind.

Somewhat nervously, the boy made his way to the front after glancing back to the other three Marauders who left without even saying goodbye. At this age, Peter was quite overweight, and Harry was reminded of Dudley, though Dudley was never as shy and nervous as the boy now waiting in front of the DADA professor's desk for the man to finish the notes he'd been taking.

"You asked to see me, sir?" he asked timidly.

The professor finally looked up and gave Peter a piercing gaze. Harry frowned. The man seemed familiar, but Harry couldn't place the face. Obviously, whoever the man was, his appearance had changed a great deal in the years since this memory was set.

"Mr. Pettigrew, I wished to speak with you about your grades and your lack of attentiveness in my class. To be frank, both have been disappointing in the extreme. I expected much better from you given your heritage."

"My ... heritage, sir?" It was clear young Peter had no idea what the professor was talking about.

"When I started working here, the Headmaster made it plain that the faculty was not to show favoritism to any particular students, and I have sought to follow that instruction. But I cannot sit idly by and watch as the only son of Martin Pettigrew wastes his potential as the lowest-ranking member of a quartet of buffoonish delinquents. I owe it to your father to do what I can to see that you live up to your potential."

Young Peter's eyes widened. "You ... you knew my father?"

"Yes. Quite well, in fact. He did not live long enough for us to develop a close friendship, but I found him to be a man of extraordinary intelligence and limitless potential. I was deeply grieved to learn of his tragic death and especially at such a young age. The wizarding world was diminished by his passing."

The boy was speechless. "I'm ... I'm sorry, sir. To have disappointed you ... and him." He swallowed deeply. "I ... don't know much about my father. I barely remember him, and Mother well, doesn't like to talk about him."

"I ... see," the professor said slowly. "And how is you ... sainted mother?"

Peter gave a wistful shrug. "She's okay. You probably know that she's sick a lot."

The professor nodded at that but said nothing. Finally, Peter spoke again.

"I, um, hate to ask, sir, but ... would it be okay if I came by to talk with you sometime? Maybe you could tell me more about my dad? That is if it's not an imposition or anything."

The man smiled, and Harry flinched. He knew it had been meant as a friendly smile, but Harry couldn't help but sense something hiding beneath it. Something ... unsettling.

"I will make you this offer. I will talk with you about your father, but  _only_  if you earn the privilege. I will give you material to study, and when you feel you have mastered it, you will come to me and let me quiz you on it. If I am satisfied with your performance, then I will tell you about Martin Pettigrew.  _But_! I will push you hard, young man. I warn you that I now consider it my personal project to mold you into a wizard your father would have been truly proud of. Do you understand, Mr. Pettigrew?"

Peter's back straightened, and a fire lit up in his eyes. "Yes sir. Whatever you say, Professor Rookwood."

At that, Harry's eyes practically bulged out of his head.  _Now_  he recognized the man, though this memory of him was decades younger than the version presently asleep in the Longbottom dungeons. " _Rookwood?!_ " he thought furiously. " _Augustus Rookwood was a former DADA professor and young Peter Pettigrew's favorite teacher?!_ "

And that appeared to be the case, judging by the look of pride and happiness on the faces of both the Second Year and Fifth Year iterations of Peter Pettigrew. If Pettigrew had fallen under Rookwood's influence during his school days, it explained a great deal but also raised even more questions than it answered.

* * *

 __ **21 August 1993**  
Longbottom Manor  
10:00 a.m.  


Over the next few days, Harry spent time talking with Sirius and Regulus. Both of them remembered Rookwood's tenure as DADA instructor, and both remembered him as a stern but competent teacher, at least by the standards of the usual Hogwarts Defense professor. In fact, each of them had been surprised to learn that Rookwood had been both an Unspeakable and a Death Eater, as he gave no indication of either at the time and Sirius had already been incarcerated and Regulus had fled the country when he was exposed. Naturally, Regulus had researched Rookwood's background thoroughly once he'd committed himself to the Azkaban break-in. From what he had learned, Rookwood had probably not yet joined Voldemort at the time he taught at Hogwarts, although he likely did so within a few years of completing his one year as DADA professor. Both brothers thought it odd that an Unspeakable would spend a year teaching at Hogwarts, and Regulus had entertained the theory that his teaching position was a cover for some other assignment. Neither of them remembered any particular scandals or mysteries during that year, although Sirius seemed to recall Wormtail becoming much more studious after spending several hours a week with the man for "remedial DADA assignments."

After Harry's initial foray into the Map, the Marauders advised him that he would have to wait before returning. Apparently, hosting the mind of a sentient being along with the four artificial personalities was draining, and the Map would need time to recover. " _A few weeks_ ," Mr. Moony had said, " _perhaps even a month or so. We'll play it by ear_."

Harry spent the next week hard at work, from tutoring sessions with Moody to private practice with the Black Wand to spending more time getting to know Sirius (although Harry told him nothing about his possession of the Map). Finally, on the afternoon of the 20th, Severus Snape sent word that he was ready to attempt a Legilimency reading of one of the Lestrange brothers. After some discussion, it was agreed that he would begin with Rabastan, the younger of the two brothers (and according to Lucius, the less intelligent of the two as well).

Upon arrival, the Potions Master explained what was involved in the interrogation process to the group. Then, he, Regulus, and Lady Augusta descended into the Longbottom dungeons while Lucius and Harry remained behind in the conference room. Lucius pulled two books out of his brief case and began flipping through them and taking notes. One was a copy of  _Hogwarts: A History_  and the other was  _Hutchinson's Peerage_ , which was a book detailing the lineages of the various Wizengamot families from their founding to the present day.

After a few minutes, Harry became uncomfortable with the silence. He knew what he wanted to discuss with the former Death Eater, but on this occasion his natural Legilimency provided no insights into how to proceed. He decided to start with something easy to perhaps break the ice.

"So, I guess Draco is already on his way to Durmstrang?" he asked.

Lucius answered without looking up from his research. "He left on the 16th. I imagine he's already Sorted and moved into his dormitory by now."

"They have Sortings at Durmstrang, too?"

"Yes, though they have seven houses instead of four. Beyond that, I don't really know anything about the process except that an ancient sarcastic Hat plays no role in the proceedings."

Harry nodded even though the man wasn't even looking at him. Nearly thirty seconds passed in silence while he tried to think of something else to ask before Lucius spoke up first.

"Mr. Potter," he said, still without looking up from his notes, "kindly ask me whatever is on your mind. Your weak efforts at dissimulation are distracting."

Harry scowled at the rebuke but then accepted the invitation to get right to the point. "Okay. Are you Theo No-Name's real father?"

At that, Lucius finally lifted his head and made eye contact with him. Unlike other occasions when Harry had caught the man off-guard, Lucius's mask was in place and was impeccable. Harry could see nothing of the storm of thoughts and emotions that now roiled behind that mask in response to his simple question.

* * *

_**14 August 1975  
Paris, France** _

Lucius's eyes fluttered open as the warm Parisian sun filtered through the window of his small and simple attic apartment. The young man sat up in bed with a yawn and stretched his arms. Despite himself, he glanced around the room with a frown (as he had seemingly every single morning upon waking here for the past three years) and wondered how a son of House Malfoy had ended up in such a humble milieu. Was it really that much of a crime to have been born  _second_? But then, the woman who shared his bed and his life stirred. He smiled.

" _Perhaps there are worse things than being impoverished and practically disowned if it can bring someone like this into my life. Living in a tiny garret with a beautiful woman who loves me as much as I love her. Why, it's almost like something out of that Muggle opera she so likes!_ "

After a second, though, the smile faded from Lucius's face. As he recalled,  _La Boheme_  did not end happily for the two young lovers. In fact, the curtains closed on Rodolfo weeping over dead Mimi's body because he'd been too poor to afford medicine for her, an uncomfortable reminder of Lucius's own circumstances. In a year's time, perhaps less, Lucius Malfoy would complete his Charms Mastery. Unfortunately, that would also end his father's legal obligation to pay for his living expenses. Lucius was only twenty-two and had no immediate job prospects, and Abraxas Malfoy had made it clear that future support of any kind would be conditional on him taking the Dark Mark. Thus, his options were increasingly binary: marry Christina Fenwick and give her the life she deserved at the cost of subservience to the mysterious Dark Lork who his father venerated  _or_  see if a Mastery and the Malfoy name without any actual Malfoy backing could win him some minor Ministry job that would pay just enough for an equally sad apartment somewhere in Diagon Alley. Or worse, Knockturn Alley.

Suddenly, Lucius was distracted from these dark thoughts by the sound of pecking at the window. It was Lilith, Abraxas Malfoy's personal owl. Surprised, Lucius rose and headed over to let the bird in without even bothering to put on a robe. A part of him thought his father would have been scandalized at the thought of him greeting a post owl  _au naturel_ , but this was Paris after all. A naked man would hardly have been the most shocking thing for an owl to encounter. Lucius took the message and shooed the owl out of the window without so much as offering it a treat. Then, he tore open the letter and read his father's unexpected message.

"Hmm," he said in a tone of mild surprise and detached amusement.

"What is it?" came his lover's sleepy voice. "Good news or bad?"

Lucius gave Christina a half-smile. "Bit of both actually," he said almost mischievously. "My brother Claudius is dead."

Christina sat up in shock. "What? What happened?" she exclaimed.

"Well, according to this, dear Claudius had finalized his contract with Narcissa Black, and he was set to be married next week. I can't  _imagine_  why I didn't get an invitation. Anyway, some of his more loutish friends gave him a stag-do, he got roaringly drunk, and then he tried to celebrate by taking his favorite Abraxan for a midnight ride without a saddle. Never a good idea when the horse has wings, I'm afraid. The beast threw him from about twenty feet in the air."

"That's awful!" Then, she paused as she thought about what he'd said. "And a fall from that height killed him?"

"Eh? Oh no, it just broke his neck. But, well, Abraxans are aggressive carnivores, you see..."

The witch gasped. "Lucius! That's horrible! Don't joke about such things!"

He sauntered over to the bed. "Who's joking? A fitting end, I should say. One beast eaten by another."

She glared at him in consternation. "Well, true or not, it's ... indecent for you to be so blase about your own brother's death."

Lucius laughed. "Christina, my love, I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but Claudius Malfoy was a horrible, vile, repugnant excuse for a wizard and an even worse excuse for a brother. But that's not the important thing!"

Christina crossed her arms. "Okay, I'll bite. What's the important thing?"

With that, Lucius actually threw himself onto the bed, landing next to his lover. "WE'RE RICH!  _That's_ the important thing! I'm the Malfoy heir now. No more eating stale bread in a drafty attic apartment! From now on, it will be champagne and foie gras every meal of the day!"

She looked away. "I hate foie gras," she said quietly.

Lucius sighed and placed his hand gently on her arm. "What troubles you, darling?"

She sighed dejectedly. "The Fenwicks aren't a Noble House, Luc. Your father might have tolerated me as the scandalous lower-class lover for his second son, but never as Lady Malfoy."

"My father will have no say in who I marry, Christina."

She scoffed. "How can you possibly believe that?"

Lucius lay back against the pillow with his arms folded behind his head. "What I  _believe_  is that I am the sole possible heir for a man in his 60's, Christina. There is literally no one else who can claim the Lordship other than me. Honestly, what other option could he have? Disown me out of sheer spite, remarry, and try to sire another male heir at his age?

Then, he grinned and let out a laugh. For perhaps the first time in his life, Lucius Malfoy was looking forward to seeing his father again. And even better, it would be at Claudius's funeral! It would probably take all of his acquired Occlumency training to not grin through the whole ceremony.

Christina said nothing but simply looked at him pensively.

* * *

_**7 June 1976  
The Great Hall of the Wizengamot** _

"Do you, Lucius, son of Abraxas of the Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy, take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife?" intoned Edith MacMillan, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

"I do," Lucius said tersely, without an ounce of emotion on his face. His immaculate formal wedding robes spoke to the solemnity and excitement of the occasion, but his facial expression gave a far different impression. In fact, he rather looked like a man trying to maintain his poise and dignity while on his way to a hangman's noose. It didn't matter, though. Abraxas Malfoy stood next to him as his "best man" and projected enough happiness and satisfaction for them both. Of course, it didn't help Lucius any that he had to constantly fight the urge to rub the ugly tattoo on his forearm that he'd accepted just a few days before, the same tattoo that adorned his father's arm and those of nearly a dozen of the many dignitaries and luminaries who were in the Wizengamot hall to observe this union.

"And do you, Narcissa, daughter of Cygnus of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, take this man as your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do," Narcissa said before smiling sweetly at her new husband. Next to her, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Narcissa's sister and maid-of-honor practically sneered at Lucius, her eyes lit up in cruel victory. He felt like vomiting.

The Chief Warlock addressed the rest of the assembly. "I now pronounce these two joined by magic and by vow as husband and wife. Let it be known, however, that this is no ordinary union. By their contract and as a token of their love and loyalty to one another, Lucius and Narcissa are joined not just as husband and wife but as co-equal partners to their joint marital estate. Upon Lucius's eventual accession to his Lordship, his wife shall not be known as Lady Malfoy, the title of a noble consort. Instead, they shall serve together as Master and Mistress of the House of Malfoy. In keeping with their wishes, I present to you all, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy!"

Lucius and Narcissa looked up towards the representatives of the Wizengamot, all of whom applauded. Some out of politeness. Others out of vicious delight that a powerful union had been forged and bent to the service of their Lord and Master. As Lucius surveyed the room, he noticed that up in the viewer's gallery, Christina Fenwick suddenly rose and quickly left the chamber, wiping her eyes as she went. If Tiberius Nott, who sat alone in his family box, noticed his recently-announced fiancée's sudden departure, he gave no sign.

* * *

__**31 January 1980  
11:30 p.m.  
A private office at the Ministry of Magic set aside for the use of House Malfoy**

Lucius frowned in annoyance and then wadded up the parchment he'd been working on for hours and tossed it into a waste basket before starting fresh on a clean page. Government budgets were complicated things under the best of circumstances, but even more so when one was trying draft one so as to clandestinely allow Ministry funds to be embezzled from the government to finance a terrorist organization without anyone knowing. At the moment, Lucius Malfoy was so engrossed with his work that he didn't even hear the door to his office open. Not until he caught the scent of a familiar perfume and looked up at once.

" _Christina_ ," he almost said aloud before catching himself.

"Lady Nott," he said instead as he rose from his seat. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this late night visit.

His former lover said nothing before producing a wand and covering the room with an array of privacy spells. Bemused, Lucius pulled his own wand out of his cane and added his own protections.

"And now that we are suitably hidden from eavesdroppers, Christina, I'll repeat the question. Why are you here?"

She moved to a chair across from his desk and sat down wearily. A pang of regret stabbed at Lucius's heart. It had three years since she'd married Tiberius Nott. She appeared to have aged ten or more.

"Tiberius is on a raid," she said in a tired voice. "But I have only recently learned that you no longer go on Death Eater raids since your father's death. Also, Narcissa is still recovering from giving birth. My congratulations on your new heir, by the way. Anyway, that makes this a good time for us to talk."

Lucius leaned back in his chair. He had indeed been fortunate. Since his father's death, he'd made the case that it was too dangerous for him to raid with the other Death Eaters. If he were caught, Crouch would assuredly demand that the Malfoy assets be frozen pending investigation and confiscated upon a conviction. The value that the young Lord Malfoy provided the Dark Lord's movement as financier and politico vastly outweighed anything he could bring as a fighter even with his considerable skill with a wand, and so Lord Voldemort granted his request and put him in charge of those Death Eater cells tasked with infiltrating the Ministry.

"Very well, Christina. Talk."

She sniffed softly. "Such coldness from you,  _Lord Malfoy_ , and towards one you once talked of marrying. Have you really traded so much of your soul just to gain the Malfoy fortune?"

Lucius regarded her stoically. "The decisions I made, Lady Nott, are irrevocable, regardless of their wisdom. I am Lucius Lord Malfoy, husband of Narcissa Black Malfoy, father of Draco Malfoy, and faithful servant of the Dark Lord. And I am past the point of worrying about how much of my soul is compromised. I have sworn oaths and accepted responsibilities. I cannot spurn them now. Again, why are you here?"

Christina looked down, hurt at his response. She inhaled slowly. "Tiberius ... wishes to have another child."

"Does he now? And how is that my concern?"

"It is your concern, Lucius, because you are the reason for his sudden desire. He knows that Narcissa has given birth to a son, and he wishes me to provide him with a daughter. He believes that if I deliver a female child who enters Hogwarts with Draco, he can persuade you to enter into a marriage contract between your house and his. Or, failing that, he can persuade the Dark Lord to  _order_  you to do so."

Lucius snorted. "Tiberius is getting a bit ahead of himself, I think. The Parkinsons have already started negotiations for their own newborn Pansy to marry Draco. And besides, there is no way to even guarantee that your next child will be a girl."

She swallowed painfully. "There are ways to ... improve the odds. Potions that can increase the likelihood of a preferred gender."

Malfoy's eyes widened in shock. "Those potions are  _illegal_ , Christina! Illegal and  _dangerous_! Surely he would not endanger your life just to forge a marital alliance with my house!"

"Why not, Lucius?" Christina replied bitterly. "I have already given him an heir. I suspect I am quite expendable in his eyes now."

Lucius gripped the arms of his chair tightly, but then, he closed his eyes and let his fury drain away. "Even if what you say is true, Christina, what do you expect me to do about it?"

She leaned forward and spoke with urgency. "You can  _take me away_ , Luc. Let us  _flee_  Britain. This very night! To Australia or the Americas. I  _know_  you have no loyalty to the Dark Lord. Only the oaths forced upon you by your father and that deranged succubus he made you take as a wife." But despite that urgency, Lucius's face remained impassive. Christina sat back dejectedly. "Or perhaps it is not your oaths which bind you. Perhaps it is simply the fear of losing all that precious gold that sits in the Malfoy vaults! After all, that is why you left me in the first place!"

Lucius looked down and drew his forefinger and thumb across his eyes. "Christina, I ... I'm sorry. But there is more at stake than gold or vows. I have  _obligations_  now. I have a newborn son who I cannot abandon to be raised alone by Narcissa according to the traditions of House Black. And I have..." He looked away for a moment. "I have other obligations as well. People who I have sworn to protect from the Dark Lord as best I can. I'm sorry. But I cannot simply run away from my responsibilities. Not even for you."

He gazed at the woman's face and tried to pretend that her expression wasn't breaking his heart. "You should go, Christina. Do not come to see me privately again. People will talk. Go now."

She rose and headed towards the door. But as she reached for the handle, she paused and turned back to him. "Do you ever miss it, Luc?"

"Miss what?"

"That drafty garret apartment with the stale bread and the tiny window that looked out over the Seine?"

"No," he lied.

She nodded sadly and left the office. The next time Lucius Malfoy would see Christina Fenwick Nott, she would be lying in repose.

* * *

_**Now...** _

"No, Mr. Potter," Malfoy replied coldly. "I am not the outcast's father. Though I am hardly surprised that Tiberius Nott might think otherwise. The former Lady Nott and I had been ... in a relationship prior to our marriages to other people. Indeed, I had suspected that Tiberius only pursued a marriage contract with Christina Fenwick as a way of striking back at me. He has always been jealous of me for many reasons, and forcing my former paramour into marrying him was something he probably viewed as a victory over me. But I never broke my vows to Narcissa while we were married. I have committed many sins in my time, but adultery was never one of them."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Of course, now that you raise the question, it would explain why Tiberius went to such extremes as the Ultimate Sanction. If I  _were_  the outcast's true sire, I would be immune to the Sanction's effects and, in fact, would be one of the few people who could legally adopt the boy and  _end_ those effects. Doubtless, Nott thought I would be so moved by the boy's torment that I  _would_  adopt him even though doing so would conclusively prove that I had cuckolded him, thereby leaving myself open to charges of line theft. As his House is Ancient and Noble, the penalty for that would have been up to ten years in Azkaban and forfeiture of most of my remaining assets."

"But since you are  _not_  Theo's true father, that's not an issue," Harry said.

"Correct, Mr. Potter. You may, of course, choose to think that I am lying about the matter and am cruelly rejecting my illegitimate son in order to avoid embarrassment, financial ruin, and jail. Or you may accept what I have told you at face value. Either way, the practical effect on the outcast is the same, and honestly, I really don't care what you think of me as a person. You have my answer. I will thank you not to raise this matter again."

Harry nodded silently, and Lucius returned to his research.

* * *

A few hours later, Snape completed his probe. Unfortunately, it would not be possible to safely dose Rabastan a second time with Draught of Living Death for at least a week, as doing so might prove fatal. And while none of the conspirators were particularly concerned with preserving the Death Eater's life, they all agreed he might still be useful, so he was instead stunned and then bound in a mask, chains, and a straitjacket for the time being, much like Augustus Rookwood in the next cell. Then, the three conspirators rejoined their compatriots in the conference room where Hoskins had prepared a platter of watercress sandwiches and a strong pot of tea.

"Well? Good news or ill?" Lucius asked.

A visibly exhausted Severus Snape took his seat at the table, as did Augusta and Regulus. It was clear that the latter two knew nothing of what he had learned as he wanted to explain everything at once to the whole group.

"A mixed bag," the Potions Master said after swallowing a bite from a sandwich, "but on the whole, things went quite well. To begin with, my concerns about probing the Lestrange brothers were overstated. Although they studied Occlumency under Rookwood to some degree, it seems Boruslav Lestrange refused to allow him unfettered access to his sons' minds. Consequently, they are not protected by any of the psychic traps I feared would be in place, and their existing Occlumency defenses after years of continuous Dementor exposure are no match for a master Legilimens. Bellatrix is another matter, for reasons I shall explain shortly."

"Boruslav Lestrange," Harry murmured. The name was familiar, and Lucius answered his unspoken inquiry.

"The former Lestrange patriarch. And also the former Potions instructor at Durmstrang. A master alchemist who pioneered the mass-production of magic-resistant orichalcum. And the only reason Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange were ever allowed into the Dark Lord's Inner Circle. Boruslav made their induction one of his conditions for swearing allegiance to the Dark Lord."

"If the name seems familiar to you, Harry," said Augusta, "you may recall that my daughter-in-law Alice killed Boruslav Lestrange in a duel in April of 1980. Many believe that revenge for Boruslav Lestrange's death was part of the reason why the Lestranges attacked Longbottom Manor after You-Know-Who's fall."

Harry nodded at that before turning back to the three ex-Death Eaters. "What exactly  _was_  the Inner Circle? Who all was in it?"

"A complicated question, Mr. Potter," said Snape. "The vast majority of Death Eaters, who numbered in the thousands, consisted of career criminals, mercenaries, and ignorant fools consumed by anti-Muggleborn bigotry, as well as those blackmailed, bribed, or Imperiused into serving the cause. The Inner Circle consisted of about thirty or so Death Eaters who were considered particularly loyal and capable or who brought specialized gifts and advantages to the table that warranted the Dark Lord's personal attentions. Only those few Death Eaters were actually given the Dark Mark which served as a method of communication directly with the Dark Lord. Some of the Inner Circle were charged with overseeing the various Death Eater cells and directing terrorist and guerilla actions. Others worked on special projects at the Dark Lord's personal direction. For example, I rarely went on raids because I served as the Dark Lord's personal Potions Master."

"Whereas I," interrupted Lucius, "mainly handled the money side of the operation, which was my own excuse for mostly avoiding raids. I imagine the Dark Lord wanted to mark Regulus to use him for field work." He turned to the younger man. "Did the Dark Lord ever realize you were a Metamorphmagus?"

Regulus shrugged. "Not to my knowledge. I think he mainly wanted me for my combat skill and because he thought that I would eventually become Lord Black."

Harry absorbed all that. "Would Pettigrew have been marked? Or your, um, ex-wife?"

"Everyone in the Inner Circle received the Dark Mark," said Lucius, "but those members who were most trusted by the Dark Lord or who worked as spies could conceal their Dark Marks at will from both magical and mundane observation, though that characteristic of the Mark ceased to function once a bearer had been confirmed as a Death Eater by other means. Erasmus and Linnea Wilkes, Augustus Rookwood, and Berith Selwyn all had been seen many times with bare unmarked arms until they were eventually captured in Death Eater regalia and exposed, at which point their marks were plainly visible. It seems unlikely that Pettigrew could have avoided rolling up his sleeves for twelve years, but he may have been granted a Dark Mark that could be concealed. Or he may simply have not been Marked yet at the time of the Dark Lord's fall.  _Or_  he may not have been high enough in the Dark Lord's esteem to even be invited into the Inner Circle. I am, however, quite certain Narcissa can conceal her Mark."

"This is all interesting, if lurid," interrupted Augusta, "but what did you learn about You-Know-Who's horcruxes?"

Snape looked almost pained at her Gryffindor directness. "Unfortunately, Rabastan knew nothing of that, and I honestly don't think the Dark Lord would have ever trusted Boruslav with a horcrux, let alone either of his sons.  _But_  Rabastan did recall Rodolphus telling him once that the Dark Lord had presented Bellatrix with a magical artifact of some kind and charging her with protecting it at all costs. Apparently, Rodolphus was somewhat jealous of Bellatrix being more trusted by the Dark Lord than himself."

"What was the artifact?" Harry asked

"Rabastan never saw it, but Rodolphus described it as a golden chalice. He has no idea what it was or where it was hidden or what protections were set in place around it."

Lucius started suddenly and then pulled out one of the books he'd been researching. He opened it to a particular page and set it in the middle of the table. There was a detailed drawing of an ornate goblet. "Here. The Golden Cup of Helga Hufflepuff. I am certain that was the item turned into a horcrux and given to Bellatrix."

"What makes you so sure?" asked Regulus.

Lucius gave him a smug look. "I have spent considerable time researching the brief post-graduate career of the mysterious Tom Marvolo Riddle. A difficult topic of research due to the Fidelius Charm that still conceals much of his past.  _But_  I did discover that shortly before he disappeared from Wizarding Britain, he was briefly detained in connection with the death of Lady Hepzibah Smith, the former matriarch of the Noble House of Smith which is the only surviving cadet house descended from the line of Hufflepuff."

"How did she die?" Harry asked.

"Officially, an aged house elf accidentally mistook a box of rat poison for sugar when preparing her afternoon tea, but naturally, a competent Slytherin could have arranged that by any number of means. What matters is that Riddle was never a suspect in Smith's death, but he  _was_  held briefly in connection with the disappearance two priceless magical artifacts from her personal collection that had come up missing during the inventory of her estate. After a few hours in custody, he was released for lack of evidence, and then he essentially vanished from Wizarding Britain. As for the artifacts, one was the aforementioned Cup which had been passed down from Smith matriarch to matriarch for centuries. The  _other_ , however, was an artifact from a  _different_  Founder, one that Smith had recently purchased from Borgin and Burkes!"

"Slytherin's Locket!" Regulus exclaimed.

"The same," Lucius said. "Before it turned up in a booby-trapped cave on the coast of Essex, the last reported location of Slytherin's Locket was with Hepzibah Smith just weeks prior to her death. And if Riddle stole the one ..."

"He undoubtedly stole the other," finished Snape. "Unfortunately, that still doesn't give us its current location. I will examine Rodolphus Lestrange in October during the first Hogsmeade weekend, but it is entirely possible that Bellatrix did not share with him the hiding place or protections of the Cup. I will probably have to probe Bellatrix's mind which  _is_  protected by the full range of mental defenses which Rookwood's training techniques could provide. Which brings us to the first of two other matters that came to light during my interrogation of Rabastan Lestrange that bear discussion."

Snape hesitated and glanced at Augusta who he suspected would not care for either bit of news.

"From reviewing Rabastan's memories, it is ... possible that Bellatrix Lestrange is ... not fully culpable for her actions," he said before wincing at the glare Lady Augusta gave him.

" _Not. Fully. Culpable?!_ " she practically growled. "That vile woman eagerly confessed to everything she was accused of in open court. I was  _there_!"

"I know, Lady Augusta, I know. At the time of her trial, Bellatrix was utterly devoted to the service of the Dark Lord. She was also his most accomplished assassin and, after the death of Erasmus Wilkes, essentially his right hand." He turned to Lucius and Regulus. "But tell me – does that description comport with your memories of Bellatrix when she was younger?"

The two men looked at one another. "Honestly," Regulus said, "I always found it a bit odd. I mean, she'd been raised to be a blood purist just like the rest of us Blacks. But when we were younger, she was never that aggressive about it. Or as cruel as the reports said she was. If anything, I always found her to be a bit shy and reserved when we were kids, at least compared to her sisters and Sirius, anyway. And I know for a fact that she refused to cut ties with Andromeda after she married a Muggleborn. Well, at first. I'm pretty sure she did by the time she took the Dark Mark."

Lucius nodded. "Bellatrix was two years ahead of Narcissa and myself. My recollection of her at school was she was somewhat aloof and studious. Nothing at all like the cackling madwoman we found at Azkaban. When we served the Dark Lord, she was ruthless and calculating and certainly not given to singing childish songs, which I attribute to Dementor-induced madness. But when she was a Seventh Year, I remember her as planning to apply for the Auror Academy and being fairly disinterested in the Dark Lord and his movement. Moreover, she was  _very_ disinterested in Rodolphus Lestrange. To the point of hexing him rather viciously when he wouldn't take no for an answer."

"So what changed?" Harry asked.

Snape exhaled with a surprising degree of bitterness. " _ **Occlumency: A Beginner's Guide**_  by Mr. Nemo." Harry's eyes widened at the mention of the book that had turned his brother into a violent thug after just a few weeks.

"Yes, Mr. Potter," Snape continued. "The same book that fell into Jim Potter's grubby little hands. But where he only read a few chapters, Bellatrix was induced to read the whole thing, cover-to-cover. The book was designed to teach Occlumency quickly, but it does so by reordering the reader's very mind. The version that Bellatrix was exposed to also had additional passages edited out of your brother's copy, passages that would render the reader obsessed with gaining the Dark Lord's favor and with adopting his social and political views regarding Wizarding society. It would also install psychic ' _back doors_ ' that would have allowed either August Rookwood or the Dark Lord himself to further refine the subject's personality. This process was used to secure Bellatrix Lestrange's loyalty to the Death Eaters ... and also to compel her to submit to the desires of Rodolphus Lestrange, who she had spurned during their school days."

"So, she was  _brainwashed_ ," Harry said. "Can she be cured?"

Snape shrugged. "I honestly do not know. I have barely scratched the surface of Rookwood's advances in the psychic arts. I cannot imagine any curative attempt that wouldn't take years or even decades nor one which isn't as likely to leave her catatonic as to cure her."

"You said Bellatrix was  _induced to read_  Mr. Nemo's book," Lucius said slowly. "Induced by whom?"

The Potions Master grimaced. "Bellatrix received a copy of Rookwood's book as a graduation present from her youngest sister – Narcissa."

Even Lucius was shocked to learn that Narcissa Black had given her own sibling a cursed book designed to alter her mind and brainwash her into serving the Dark Lord. Finally, Augusta spoke up.

"All of this is well and good, Severus. But none of it matters in comparison to the information about You-Know-Who's horcruxes which we have hired you to obtain. So let us put into abeyance the question of whether we will attempt to  _heal_  Bellatrix Lestrange or simply put her out of her misery." From the older woman's tone, it was quite clear which option she preferred. She picked up the teapot to pour another cup for herself as she spoke. "Is there anything else you gleaned from the mind of Rabastan Lestrange?"

At that question, Snape grimaced even harder and prepared to defend himself in case Augusta decided to hex him.

"Yes, Lady Augusta." He took a deep breath. "There is some evidence that Barty Crouch Jr. may still be alive."

And then, Harry and the three men all jumped as the teapot crashed to the floor and shattered.

"...  _what_?" said Frank Longbottom's mother in a voice as cold as the grave.

* * *

_**24 August 1993, 8:30 p.m.  
The DADA Instructor's Private Living Quarters at Hogwarts** _

It had a long and tiring day for Hogwarts' newest faculty member, but his work was nearly done. His classroom and quarters were set up for his liking, as was the large ballroom now repurposed both for the dueling club he'd grudgingly inherited and for the school-wide lessons he would be giving on the Patronus Charm. Fortuitously, he'd recently ingratiated himself with a young Slytherin graduate who could actually cast the blasted thing (for he himself had never mastered it) and who had agreed to serve as a teacher's assistant. Rufus Scrimgeour smiled. The things young people would do for a good reference.

He had just sat down to review his first week's lesson plans when there was a knock on his door.

"Enter." He was not terribly surprised when Albus Dumbledore came in. Scrimgeour had been ensconced at the school for several days, and the Headmaster had not yet come by for some of their traditional repartee. In fact, Scrimgeour thought he was overdue.

"Good evening, Rufus. I just wanted to see how you were settling in."

"Quite well, Albus. Quite well, indeed. Would you care for a glass of port?" As he spoke, Scrimgeour hobbled over to a sideboard where a decanter and several glasses rested.

"No, but thank you," he demurred.

"As you wish. Well, as you can see, I'm fully settled in." Scrimgeour smirked slightly as he poured a glass for himself. "Was there ... anything else you wanted to discuss?"

Dumbledore gave a long-suffering sigh. "You really do abhor small talk, don't you, Rufus."

"Only with you, old friend. You use idle chit-chat to be disarming. And I hate being disarmed."

The Headmaster shook his head. "I had a conference with the Board of Directors. There was some discussion over the wisdom of teaching the Patronus Charm to all seven years. I wanted to confirm that you felt up to the challenge."

The ex-auror took a sip and enjoyed the burn of the liquor down his throat. "I must confess that I am not personally able to cast the Charm, but I am fully versed in the theory. Also, I've offered Marcus Flint some post-graduate credit and a small stipend if he assists me in the project."

"Post-graduate credit?"

Scrimgeour nodded. "He'll get some bonus points retroactively applied to his Charms NEWT, enough to raise him to a solid Outstanding. I'd have applied it to his DADA NEWT, but he'd already received an O on that exam."

"I was not aware it was possible to grant bonus points on a NEWT. And especially not retroactively."

The other man shrugged. "Griselda Marchbanks owed me a favor. I got her grandson off from a charge of Second Degree Mugglebaiting back in '84."

"I see," Dumbledore said with a look of faint disapproval. "And I take it you are familiar with young Flint's background?"

"That he's the son of an unmarked Death Eater who was looking to follow in his father's shady footsteps until the mysterious Harry Potter did something to change the boy's career trajectory? Yes, I'm aware." Scrimgeour smiled at the Headmaster, who crooked an eyebrow.

"Is it just my imagination, Rufus, or do you have something more than a casual professional interest in young Harry Potter?"

"Nothing prurient or malicious, I assure you. But you must admit that he represents an intriguing collection of anomalies. He is the twin brother of the Boy-Who-Lived but was raised under drastically different circumstances. He has natural Legilimency which specifically manifests as a deductive genius not unlike the form of Legilimency I was born with. He is also the son of my replacement as Chief Auror with whom he has an antagonistic relationship, a fact that might be of use to me in the future."

Dumbledore stared at the man who he had considered a friend for many decades in visible surprise. "I am sorry, Rufus, but you quite caught me off guard. I was unprepared for something so unexpected as you actually being direct and honest."

Scrimgeour shrugged and took another sip of port. "You are well-skilled at Legilimency yourself, Albus. I could have obfuscated, but I imagine you'd have figured out my intentions towards Harry Potter before you left. However, we'd have probably been up past midnight in the process, and it's been a long day. In any case, put your mind at ease. I have no ill intentions towards Harry Potter or any other student."

"Beyond the fact that you aspire to use Harry Potter against James Potter in some way," Dumbledore said drily.

The other man chuckled. "I'm Slytherin, Albus. We use everyone in every way that we possibly can. I suspect a clever young snake like Harry Potter would expect nothing less of me. As for James Potter, I give him a year in his current position. Maybe less. He would be a poor Chief Auror in the best of circumstances, but with the Azkaban breakout and everything else that's happened, he's a train wreck in the making. I plan to be well-positioned when that train finally runs off the tracks."

The Headmaster blinked in confusion. "You think serving as DADA professor will position you for eventually reclaiming the Chief Auror's job?"

"Oh no, my friend. My injuries make it highly unlikely for me to ever work in any sort of active law enforcement.  _But_  when James falls, Amelia Bones will be the only plausible replacement. Cornelius Fudge will ask her to laterally transfer into his job, and then I will graciously accept the office of DMLE Director when it's offered to me. And a few years after that, when Fudge's unfitness finally catches up with him, I will support Amelia as the next Minister in exchange for reforms and increased funding in the DMLE that will ensure we aren't caught flat-footed like last time. Besides, we both know I wasn't going to teach for more than a year – the job is cursed after all. But it's a year I can spend strengthening political ties with Wizengamot families through their children here at Hogwarts, as well as a year I can spend recuperating and undergoing rehabilitation therapy with Madam Pomfrey."

Dumbledore sighed again. "I think I will take that glass of port after all." As Scrimgeour turned back to the decanter, the Headmaster continued. "Why are you even telling me all this? I've never known you to be this direct. And what if I revealed what you've said to James Potter?"

"You won't. You know what's at stake, Albus. You-Know-Who is out there, gathering strength and seeking the means to restore himself. Several of his most formidable servants have been freed from Azkaban, presumably to aid his eventual return.  _And_  we now know he made at least one horcrux, which tells us a great deal about his power, his knowledge, and his propensity for utter evil that we could never have truly appreciated before now. You  _need_  someone like me at the levers of government. I know you're fond of your Gryffindor golden boy, but in times like these, spurious ethics are far less valuable than cold pragmatism. You know I'm right even if you cannot yet admit it to yourself. And that is why you won't repeat anything I just said to Potter. It would do nothing except burn a bridge between us while undermining his self-confidence. And I suspect his confidence will already be taking a hit sooner rather than later."

"As for why I'm telling you this," he continued as he handed a glass over to his old friend and then took a seat behind his desk while Dumbledore sat opposite. "Well, I  _am_  the Hogwarts DADA professor. The great majority of my predecessors have been some combination of incompetent and malicious. You know perfectly well that I am not the former, and I thought it best to reassure you that I am not the latter. My agenda here at Hogwarts is perfectly straightforward. Well, for a Slytherin definition of straightforward."

"Be that as it may, I'm not entirely comfortable with you using your position here to advance your political ambitions by ingratiating yourself with the students."

Rufus barked out a laugh. "Why not? You never had a problem with Slughorn for all those years!"

Dumbledore grimaced. "Yes, well, he was well-ensconced long before I became Headmaster. So much so that he had a network of followers ready to storm the castle if I'd tried to rein him in. While I consider Horace Slughorn a friend despite our differences, I wasn't entirely sorry to see him retire, and I am not eager to have another professor follow in his footsteps, even if only for a year."

"I don't blame you. By the way, how  _did_  you get him to retire?"

"He finally crossed a line that allowed me to credibly threaten him with termination even if it upset the Slug Club Alumni."

"Oh?"

Dumbledore took a sip from his glass and frowned slightly at the taste. He rarely indulged in liquor of any kind. "Yes, he got bored with his Sixth Year NEWTS Potions class and added Amortentia to the curriculum without bothering to collect all of the samples brewed. There were some unpleasant incidents. Nothing with any serious or lasting consequences, but enough to cause embarrassment to the children of influential parents. I persuaded him that it was time to take a break from academia."

"And just in time to replace him with your reformed Death Eater," Scrimgeour said with a smirk.

"I have complete faith in Severus, Rufus. And the intelligence he brought us during the war was of inestimable value."

"Yes, of course. Whatever it takes for the Greater Good."

The Headmaster crooked an eyebrow. "Is there a hidden meaning in that remark, Rufus?"

"I was merely thinking about our conversation last June in which you denounced the idea of ' _The Greater Good_ ' as a philosophical goal. Surely, however, removing a tenured professor with whom you'd had such a long friendship in favor of a 21-year-old freshly-minted Potions Master who'd been your spy during the war is an example of acting for the Greater Good, no matter how distasteful you find the concept in general."

Dumbledore shook his head. "The phrase ' _For the Greater Good_ ' is associated with utilitarianism, Rufus, the doctrine that actions are per se correct if they benefit more people than they harm. It's a shortened form of the longer expression "the greatest good for the greatest number," a concept which necessarily implies that some people must suffer so that a greater number of people will benefit. I refuse to engage in such calculus if it involves intentionally inflicting suffering no matter what the potential Good. In any case, Horace was already planning retirement even before I began my ... association with Severus Snape. I fail to see how my actions pertaining to Severus's employment are unacceptably utilitarian."

"Perhaps not," Scrimgeour said as he studied his port while swirling it around in its glass. "But let's be honest. We both know that for all your current reticence, there have been times when you have been persuaded to act according to the Greater Good in the past."

There was a tiny twitch on the left side of Dumbledore's mouth that only Scrimgeour and perhaps ten other people in the world would have recognized as a mixture of apprehension and, perhaps, guilt.

"You have me at a loss, Rufus. Whatever do you mean?"

The man's smile was almost predatory. "Some people collect stamps, Albus. Others collect chocolate frog cards. I collect  _secrets_. For example ... I know about Romulus."

At that, barely recognizable expressions flashed across the faces of both men almost simultaneously. To Scrimgeour, Dumbledore's face betrayed both surprise at his knowledge of the Romulus Affair and, more interestingly, relief that he was not referring to something from the Headmaster's past that both invoked the Greater Good principle and was even more potentially embarrassing. He filed that away for future investigation. To Dumbledore, on the other hand, Scrimgeour's expression revealed that the other man now knew he had even bigger secrets in his past but the ex-auror had no idea what they were. Both men instantly knew what the other had deduced about their own lapses in self-control and both successfully hid their mutual annoyance about giving anything away to another Legilimens.

Dumbledore took another sip of his port. "Romulus, eh? Do the Unspeakables know that you've been looking through their top secret files, Rufus? I hear they take a dim view of such things."

Rufus shrugged again. "I've been lucky so far, I suppose. In that regard at least."

"I hope your luck continues for the sake of your health and safety. But to answer your insinuations, Romulus represented the last gasp of my willingness to be persuaded by appeals to the Greater Good. It taught me the hard way that some lines should not be crossed no matter what the assumed societal benefit. I hope you will take the lessons I learned to heart in your future political endeavors both inside and outside of Hogwarts."

The Headmaster rose and placed the now empty glass on the desk. "This has been a most stimulating conversation, Rufus. We should do this more often."

"My door is always open to you, Albus."

The old man headed out the door but then stopped on the threshold. "Oh, and Rufus? I hope I don't need to remind you that it is a crime to use active Legilimency against anyone here, student or staff, without consent?"

"I wouldn't dream of doing so, Albus."

Dumbledore nodded and closed the door behind him, leaving Professor Scrimgeour to his stacks of lesson plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1: I am somewhat frustrated that after more than 18,000 words, an arc called "Back to School" has not actually managed to get the kids back to school. I really should have named this chapter and the last something else. Anyway, it was necessary because there are some things that absolutely had to happen before the start of the school year or it would have caused problems later, but I worry that people will think that Death Eater Menace will end up longer than The Secret Enemy, which I don't think will be the case. Rest assured, next chapter will end with Harry et al. reaching Hogwarts, though not without incident. And once the kids are at Hogwarts, the pace should pick up quickly.
> 
> AN2: This chapter does not represent any sort of redemption arc for Peter or even an attempt to justify his actions. Peter Pettigrew was and is a Death Eater. Unlike Bellatrix or Lucius, he was neither mind-controlled nor bribed/blackmailed into joining Voldemort. He made his choices and, at this point, doesn't even regret them in the slightest. Rather, this chapter is the beginning of an exploration into to how and why Peter made those choices, something completely lacking in canon, which, frankly, veers close to saying that Peter became a traitor simply because he was short, fat and unlikeable while Sirius was good looking and popular and eventually played by Gary Oldman instead of a relatively minor British character actor.


	14. Back to School (finale)

**CHAPTER 14: Back to School (pt 3)**

__**26 August 1993  
8:30 a.m.  
The Tonks Clinic and Personal Residence**

As the sun beamed through the kitchen windows of the Tonks household, Theo No-Name sat down for breakfast with his de facto guardians and their daughter. The boy had been made well-aware of young Nymphadora's antipathy for her given name, but it was impractical to call her "Tonks" around the house since everyone else who lived there had the same surname, so she finally gave him permission to call her "Dora," Ted's pet name for her. Andromeda usually insisted on calling her "Nymphadora" and in fact seemed to derive a minor but perverse pleasure from doing so. But while the Tonkses had been nothing but welcoming since his arrival, Theo was aware of the growing tension in the household. Ever since the Azkaban breakout, Dora had been put on inactive status with the aurors, and based on the news reports, it was to some extent because of him. Theo's own ex-father had been the one to suggest in front of the Wizengamot that the family's charitable act of welcoming an outcast like him into their home suggested something nefarious. Combined with the family's blood relationship to several of the escapees and the probable involvement of Metamorphmagi, the residents of Hogsmeade had been giving the Tonks Clinic the evil eye for weeks now, and the number of patients Ted and Andi saw had dropped noticeably. Theo felt sure that the Ultimate Sanction was only making things worse for them all.

Just as the Tonkses and their summer guest were tucking into their morning meal, their house elf Iris popped into the room bearing an envelope.

"A letter has arrived for the young master by owl post. It says it's from Hoggy Warts." The tiny creature handed the letter to Theo.

"Thank you, Iris," he said before opening the envelope with some trepidation. Good news had been on short supply this summer.

_To all Hogwarts students,_

_It has come to the my attention that many of our students have expressed difficulty in studying effectively within the individual Houses due to the school's current communal dorm structure. It has been suggested that by requiring all students of the same year to share a single common dorm room, Hogwarts has deprived its student body of the benefits of privacy and solitude necessary for academic progress. While I am mindful of the importance of tradition, and particularly traditions dating back to the time of the Founders, I am nevertheless committed to exploring every avenue to improve academic performance. And so, with the permission of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, I have instituted a pilot program for the coming school year. Beginning this September, the dungeon level that previously housed all of the Third Year Slytherin students will instead be divided into separate private rooms for each individual student. The academic progress of the Third Year Slytherin class will be compared at the end of the year with both the other three Houses and with prior Slytherin exam results, and if there is noticeable improvement, this program may be expanded in coming years to the rest of the student body. Room assignments will be provided to the affected students at the Welcoming Feast, at which I look forward to seeing you all once again._

_Until then, I remain_

_Prof. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore  
Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft_

Theo read through the letter twice before sharing its contents with the Tonkses. "It seems I'm getting a private room this year, along with all the other Slytherins in my class." He frowned. "I don't know if that's good or bad. On the one hand, I won't have to share a room with people who might want to do something to me in the night. On the other, I won't have any witnesses if people break into my room to do something to me in the night."

"I'd focus on the former, Theo," said Andi drily. "Pessimism is rarely helpful. But just to be on the safe side, I'll provide you with a few nasty but non-lethal wards I learned from the Black family grimoire."

"Will the Doctors Tonkses be requiring anything further for breakfast?" Iris asked.

"No, Iris," said Ted. "Everything was excellent as usual. Oh, and I wanted to let you know. Professor Snape will be sending a house elf by later to pick up a package of potions. Andi and I may be out doing some house calls when the elf arrives. The package is next to the floo and is marked with Snape's name."

"Iris will tend to Professor Snape's elf when he arrives," the elf said before popping away.

"Maybe I ought to have one of you give me a refresher course in potion brewing," Dora said disconsolately. "My auror career is over before it began, I think."

"You'll get through this, sweetheart," Ted replied. "They'll catch those escapees and prove you had nothing to do with the escape."

The girl snorted but said nothing.

"And either way," said Andromeda, "sitting around here mooning over your problems won't accomplish anything, Nymphadora. Go out and do something with all this free time you have. Think of it as a vacation."

Dora stood up from the table angrily and headed for the door. "Unpaid involuntary leave is not a  _vacation_ , Mother! AND DON'T CALL ME NYMPHADORA!"

Soon after, the front door of the Tonks Clinic opened and then slammed shut. Theo winced.

"She really hates that name, doesn't she?" he asked the girl's parents.

"She does indeed," Andromeda answered with a mischievous smile. "That's the reason we never let her even try to have it changed. She's still at the age where she needs to rebel about something. An embarrassing name gives her something to rebel against in a way she won't regret later."

Theo took that in without comment. He found the answer unconvincing, but then he also knew that the Ministry made it surprisingly difficult to change one's name through legal means as opposed to magical. If some kind of magical effect resulted in a name change, it was automagically altered to the new name on most legal documents bearing the original one. But changing a name non-magically was a lengthy process.

"If you don't mind my asking, why did you name her Nymphadora anyway? I'd understand if she'd been named after a heavenly body since that's a Black family tradition, but Nymphadora isn't a star or constellation or anything. And I know it's not a Muggle name."

Andi smiled again, this time looking downright devious. "If I tell you, will you swear never to tell her the truth?"

"ANDROMEDA TONKS!" Ted exclaimed with surprise. "You  _promised_!"

"I promised I'd never tell  _her_. And to be honest, I've born the brunt of her hatred of that name a lot more than you have, dear husband."

Ted said nothing, but he looked surprisingly embarrassed and petulant as Andi turned back to Theo.

"She was supposed to have been named Callisto Theodora Tonks. Callisto was a nymph from Greek mythology, and one of Jupiter's moons is named for her. Theodora is the name of Ted's grandmother who is also his namesake.  _Unfortunately_ , while I was spending seventeen hours in labor giving birth to our little bundle of joy, Ted was overcome with nerves and accidentally took too many Calming Draughts. When our daughter was finally born, he was so addled that all he could remember was something about a nymph named Dora which is what ended up on the birth certificate. I sent my very first wandless hex at him when I found out, but then I decided we'd just keep it as it was. I thought it would be character building."

"Character ... building?" Theo asked in confusion.

She nodded. "When people won't respect the name you were born with, you learn to make them respect you for yourself."

Theo nodded slowly at that as he wondered if she'd meant her words to apply to his own situation. He picked up the Hogwarts letter to read it again.

* * *

_**Later that afternoon ...** _

Iris was busy dusting in the parlor when a soft pop heralded the arrival of another house elf.

"Good afternoon. Dobby greets you on behalf of his master, the Great Harry Potter. Dobby is here to collect some potions which were being sent for by Potion Master Snape."

Iris studied the other elf with remarkable intensity for a house elf. "Dobby, is it? Iris has heard tell of the ...  _exploits_  of the one called Dobby." She walked over as if to examine the other elf who swallowed deeply and let his ears sag noticeably.

"Iris was given to understand that the Dobby elf was ...  _unwell_." Her tone seemed to indicate distaste, and it was clear that she had wanted to use a word even less flattering than "unwell." Dobby quailed for a few seconds before straightening his back and returning Iris's gaze without flinching.

"Dobby was indeed ...  _unwell_. But Dobby is recovered now. Dobby is a good elf."

Iris stepped even closer and then inhaled deeply as if taking in Dobby's scent. The other elf grimaced slightly. Finally, she took a step back.

"Iris  _conditionally_  approves."

Dobby relaxed. "Dobby is grateful and will strive to be worthy of Iris's approval."

The female elf said nothing. She merely snapped her fingers, and the package flew from the next room into the parlor and Dobby's waiting hands. He bowed to Iris and raised his hand to snap his own fingers. But then, he paused and gave a somewhat pained expression.

"Iris," he said. "Please forgive Dobby's impertinence, but Dobby could not help but notice the signs. Is Iris's time ..."

"Yes," she interrupted quickly but calmly. "Very soon, Iris thinks. Iris cannot see the shape of it but ... yes, very soon."

Dobby bowed again but more slowly and with much deeper respect, and his face assumed an unreadable expression that somehow mixed sadness with awe. "Dobby wishes Iris good luck."

She nodded but remained silent, and without another word, Dobby was gone.

* * *

_**From a letter received by Rita Skeeter and written in disappearing ink...** _

_Rita,_

_As per usual, this letter will self-immolate once read completely, so take notes as you go. Below is all the easily available information pertaining to Dolores Jane Umbridge. As you may realize after reading this letter, there may be some less easily available information about the subject, but think hard before you ask me to dig into it. Some skeletons are best left buried._

_Subject was born in 1955 to Orford Umbridge (Pureblood but not of any Noble line) and Muggle Ellen Cracknell (ostensibly – see below). Has one squib younger brother, current status unknown. The Muggle apparently had some family history of mental illness, and Orford divorced her in 1963, returning to the Wizarding world with his 8-year-old daughter in tow. Somewhere along the way, Orford also suffered an injury (possibly curse damage) from an unknown source which impaired both his intelligence and his magical ability, but several school friends managed to get him a minor sinecure at the Ministry "overseeing the Ministry house elves," as if they actually need an overseer. Ellen Cracknell died in a Muggle mental institution in 1970, and the squib boy was raised by relatives on his mother's side. There are no records of him after he left Muggle primary school. In 1989, Orford's condition deteriorated to the point that he could no longer maintain even the pretense of employability, and Dolores had him placed in a home in Dorset for indigent elderly witches and wizards who lack the financial resources for either in-house nursing or permanent in-patient status in St. Mungo's. Despite the meagerness of his current circumstances, Orford's continued care takes up a substantial portion of Dolores's Ministry income. I'm told she still visits him regularly._

_Subject was sorted into Slytherin in 1966 and graduated in 1973 with 7 OWLs and 5 NEWTs: Charms, Magical History, Muggle Studies, Ancient History, and, somewhat surprisingly, DADA, though her only O's were in the two history courses. She then started work in the Ministry Archives while pursuing a Mastery in History of Magic which she abandoned before completion. She eventually obtained a permanent job in the Archives (specifically the Educational Records division) which she held for seventeen years before her recent promotion to Undersecretary._

_Subject is, to be blunt, a frumpy spinster with only one major romantic involvement I'm aware of. From 1975 to 1976, she was engaged to Jack MacMillan (of the Noble MacMillans, though he's a poor cousin whose family is estranged from the current seat-holders). Three weeks before their marriage date, Jack MacMillan was killed (along with 26 others) in the April 1976 werewolf attack on Diagon Alley. Poor Dolores saw the whole thing, and while she wasn't injured herself, she spent several weeks in the St. Mungo's mental healing ward. Undoubtedly, this experience is the source of one of the two major political affiliations that she has pursued over the last twenty years: Dolores is a dues-paying member of Witches Against Lycanthropic Killers (WALK), a minor advocacy group that agitates for hardline policies against werewolves, regardless of their criminal records or other dark affiliations._

_Subject's other political affiliation is a bit more provocative. From her Second Year at Hogwarts until the group's dissolution in 1978, Umbridge was an outspoken supporter of the Slytherin Solution Society, which advocated that Magical Britain adopt the so-called Slytherin Solution for how to treat Muggleborns and Muggle-raised Halfbloods like herself. Specifically, they wanted the government to take magical children out of Muggle homes at the first sign of accidental magic, memory-wipe the parents, and foster the magical children out to fully-magical homes. Needless to say, it seems being raised by the mentally ill Ellen Cracknell Umbridge had a powerful impact on young Dolores. I received the Society's newsletter myself for many years, though I was never a full member and never interacted with Umbridge through it. The SSS was shut down in 1978 because its views were considered "Death Eater sympathetic" which was nonsense. The SSS wanted to rescue Mudbloods from their filthy Muggle parents and give them a decent upbringing, not exterminate them like the Death Eaters wanted. Regardless, Umbridge's enthusiastic support for the SSS was a minor black mark on her Ministry record which likely kept her from advancement though she has never been accused of either Death Eater sympathies or even any incidents of blood purism._

_So that's the official report. Now we get into the realm of rumor and suspicion. You see, I have yet to hear any plausible explanation of how Orford Umbridge managed to suffer nearly-crippling curse damage while living among Muggles with a Muggle wife and family. And here's another thing, when he was a Seventh Year, Orford (a Slytherin) was romantically linked with Ardella Selwyn (of_ _those_ _Selwyns). Shortly after graduation, Orford and Ardella both disappeared from Magical Britain for some time. About two years later, Ardella apparently turned up dead in a Muggle hospital, but the Selwyns hushed up all the details. Then, years later, Orford shows back up with an insane Muggle wife and two kids before getting rid of the wife and the squib child. I wouldn't presume to speculate with anyone but you, deary, but from the timing, it certainly seems possible that Dolores might actually be the child of Orford and Ardella, with the latter dying during childbirth and the former marrying the Muggle to conceal Dolores's parentage from House Selwyn. Or perhaps the truth is even stranger and more horrible. This is the Selwyns we're talking about, after all._

_If you want me to dig into that cesspit, Rita, we'll need to get together to discuss remuneration. Exploring the Selwyn family history calls for hazard pay, I should think._

_Eleanor_

* * *

__**29 August 1993  
10:00 a.m.  
Longbottom Manor**

Harry sat in an overstuffed chair in the Longbottom parlor as he reviewed the letter he'd received from Hogwarts about the new private room assignments, only occasionally glancing over to the fireplace as he waited for Lady Augusta to floo in from the Ministry's International Portkey Station with Neville in tow. The boy bit his lower lip in nervous anticipation – Neville had been one of his closest friends since the very start of his Hogwarts schooling. It was a friendship he'd thought would never die, one so important to Harry that, at the age of eleven, he'd called upon Neville to be his "moral compass," to act as the one person who Harry would listen to if the other boy thought he was approaching some line that should not be crossed. But Theo No-Name had been another of Harry's closest friends and for nearly as long. And despite his considerable skill as a young Occlumens, it tied Harry's stomach in knots to think that Neville would probably hate Theo now, and that he might well hate Harry as well unless Harry went out of his way to reject the other boy.

Suddenly, there was a loud "whoosh" and a gout of green flame that heralded the arrival of Neville and Lady Augusta. Harry did a double-take. Apparently, Africa had been good for Neville. The boy had grown a good three inches, it seemed, and he would probably be the tallest student in their year. The last of his baby-fat had melted away, replaced by some obvious muscles, and his hair had grown out into a rakish shaggy mop-top that Harry suspected most of the girls in their lass would find adorable. For a second, Neville simply looked at Harry. Then, he stepped forward and pulled Harry into a bear hug.

"I've missed you, Harry," Neville said. "I missed you a lot." Then, he released the hug and stepped back. "I've got a lot to talk about. I want to tell you all about my summer. But you first. Anything exciting happen with you while I was gone."

Harry pasted on his best fake smile as he tried not to think about the collection of Death Eaters locked away two floors below them, three of whom were responsible for brutally torturing Neville's parents to the point of insanity, as well as Professor Snape's recent bombshell that Barty Crouch Jr., the fourth attacker, might still be alive somehow. It was weak evidence, consisting entirely of Rabastan Lestrange's hazy and distorted memories of a visit by Barty's parents to see him in Azkaban just a day before his death, but it was enough to warrant further investigation.

"Nope," Harry lied effortlessly. "My summer's been completely, 100% boring. Just ...  _incredibly_  dull."

* * *

**Meanwhile, outside Grimmauld Place ...**

With the soft sucking sound of twisted space, the Black Brothers apparated into an alley just across from 12 Grimmauld Place. Immediately, Sirius stumbled and Regulus swiftly caught him to stop him falling down.

"I'm alright!" Sirius said irritably even though he was clearly out of breath and leaning heavily on a cane. Regulus looked at him doubtfully, but when it seemed clear that his older brother was in no danger of collapsing, he let go of Sirius's arm. With a few seconds of concentration, the Metamorphmagus altered his features into his current alias of Mr. Cato and then stepped out of the alley to make certain the area wasn't under surveillance. The house they grew up in might be unplottable, but James Potter apparently knew the general address, and since two members of House Black were among the Azkaban escapees, it was possible that there might be someone from the DMLE charged with monitoring the general area. Regulus certainly  _hoped_ that wasn't the case, as he and Harry had previously visited the house without any disguises at all, but so far, there had been no signs that they'd been observed.

Today seemed to bear that out, as Regulus saw no signs of wizards on the scene to monitor 12 Grimmauld Place. He returned to the alley and transfigured a nearby empty trashcan into a wheelchair. After a few moments of argument, Sirius grudgingly sat in it and allowed his younger brother to wheel him across the street and into the concealed townhouse.

Inside the foyer, the two stopped in surprise. Sirius hadn't known what to expect (though he certainly expected the worst), but Regulus had been here only a few weeks before and had seen firsthand the terrible shape of the house. He barely recognized it today. Decades of dust and cobwebs were gone, as was the hideous troll-leg umbrella stand. All the light fixtures had been replaced with new ones that were both brighter and more inviting than the ghoulish candelabras their parents favored. The blood-red carpets in the hallway had been removed in favor of brand-new ones in a tasteful creme. The nearly-black mahogany panels on the walls had been stripped and re-varnished with a lighter and much more inviting stain. Most surprising of all, however, was the fact that most of the wall on the right-hand side of the corridor had been torn down completely, providing an open floor plan for the main parlor which itself had been redecorated into a more modern and welcoming style. Regulus quickly realized that part of the missing wall included the section where Walburga Black's portrait had been hanging during his last visit. As soon as the two made it through the door, Dobby popped into view and stood before them in his little black three-piece suit, his arm clasped behind his back in a respectful pose.

"Good morning, Masters Regulus and Sirius," he said cheerfully. "Welcome back to 12 Grimmauld Place. Dobby hopes that his efforts to prepare the house meet with your satisfaction."

"So far so good," Regulus said. "It's remarkable to see the change after just a few weeks. Thank you for your work, Dobby."

"Didn't there used to be a wall there?" Sirius asked in confusion.

"There was indeed, sir," the house elf replied. "Dobby regrets to say that he was unable to overcome the permanent sticking charm which affixed the portrait of your late mother to the entryway wall. However, upon investigation, Dobby realized that it was not a supporting wall and so it was a simple matter to ... renovate the problem. Madame Walburga's portrait has been moved to the attic along with a five-foot-long section of the original wall that contains it. If you wish to speak with..."

"Sweet Morgana's Tits, NO!" Sirius interrupted.

Regulus frowned at his brother's outburst and then turned his attention back to Dobby. "Your work appears exemplary, Dobby. Is the rest of the house in as good a shape?"

At that, Dobby looked somewhat pained. "Regrettably not, Master Regulus. Dobby has managed to thoroughly clean and repair most of the main floor and most of bedrooms on the second floor, including the same bedrooms that you and Master Sirius used when you resided here and a third bedroom for the Great and Powerful Wizard Harry Potter. However, Dobby is still in the process of cleaning and repairing the rest of the house. In particular, Dobby was hesitant to address the condition of either the basement, the master bedroom suite, or the library without yourselves on hand. The wards and curses on those areas are ... excessive, and Dobby lacked confidence that he could easily bypass them, particularly since Dobby is not truly a Black elf and thus is not fully attuned to this property."

"Couldn't you get Kreacher to help?" Sirius asked gruffly. "Regulus informs me that the little monster is still alive."

Dobby wrinkled his nose slightly. "The Kreacher elf still lives, sir, but Dobby must reluctantly report that for the last few weeks, the Kreacher elf has split his time between hiding in the cupboard under the sink in the kitchen and residing in the attic where he loudly begs forgiveness from the portrait of Madame Black for failing to," Dobby paused and coughed delicately, " _protect the house from infestation by blood traitors_ , as he puts it. Regardless of his current location, he is usually to be found intoxicated on butterbeer and thus of little aid to Dobby."

Regulus crooked an eyebrow. He remembered Dobby from their encounter in the Prince's Lair, and the transformation of that cringing little thing into the hypercompetent elf before him was in some ways more impressive than what Dobby had achieved with the house.

"That's alright, Dobby. Leave Kreacher to his own affairs for the time being."

"Unless you find him doing something he shouldn't," Sirius interjected almost merrily. "In that case, you've got my permission to kick his little arse."

Dobby nodded as if accepting that order while Regulus shook his head. "Sirius, I'll remind you that Kreacher is  _my_  house elf."

"I'm sorry.  _Who_  is the current Lord Black?" Sirius replied smugly.

Regulus rolled his eyes, as Dobby came forward to take control of Sirius's wheelchair. "With your permissions, sirs, Dobby will now escort you to Master Sirius's rooms. Dobby has already retrieved your prescribed potions from the Tonks Clinic. They are waiting for you upstairs." He hesitated. "While Dobby took the liberty of renovating the house where it seemed warranted, he has made no changes to your bedrooms beyond cleaning and replacing linens. Accordingly, the prior wall decorations are still in place, including those of a ... scandalous nature."

"It's alright, Dobby," Regulus said with a long-suffering sigh. "I'm sure Sirius is thrilled that his Farrah Fawcett posters are still in place."

"How the hell do you know who Farrah Fawcett is?" Sirius asked in surprise. "Or was? I have no idea whether she's still alive."

"She was last I'd heard," Regulus replied. "And I believe I'd mentioned that I spent quite a long time in the Muggle world, Sirus."

"Yes, but with no details, Little Brother. Since we'll be cooped up here in Hell House for a few days at least, I look forward to hearing all about your Muggle adventures. I'm sure they're hilarious."

Minutes later, Sirius was laying comfortably in his old bed in a room practically coated in Gryffindor crimson save for a few twenty-year-old posters of various scantily clad Muggle pin-up girls plus an equal number of posters depicting various Muggle motor bikes. Regulus was honestly surprised. He had not been in this room since before Sirius left. After their mother had blasted Sirius off the family tapestry, he'd assumed that she would scour this room down to the floorboards and sheet rock, but apparently she'd simply locked it up and forgotten about it instead. He summoned a chair from downstairs and sat down next to the bed.

And once seated, Regulus realized he had no idea what to say. He did  _not_  want to discuss everything he'd been up to since fleeing Britain – way too many scabbed memories there to allow Sirius the chance to pick at them – but he was at a loss for what he could talk to Sirius about as a diversion. " _Say, I hear you've been in Azkaban for a decade or so. How was it?_ " He decided to go for something safer. Marginally.

"So ... Dobby said that Mother's portrait was in the attic now. Do you want to see her at some point? Not now, I suppose, but later perhaps?"

The  _look_  Sirius gave him made Regulus flinch.

"I'd sooner poke my head up a nundu's arse. But you go ahead, Regulus. You were always  _Mummy's favorite_."

"Not any more," Regulus said with a dry laugh. "I spoke with her portrait the night I came here to destroy the locket. She now considers me to be as much a blood traitor as you."

Sirius did a double-take. After a few seconds though, he regrouped. "Well, look on the bright side. At least she didn't live long enough to Crucio you."

"I know," Regulus said quietly. "I remember that night."

The older brother looked away and blushed slightly. "Did she ... how did they treat you? You know, after I left?"

"Okay, mostly. Soon after you departed, Grandfather Arcturus summoned us to Chevenoir to ... well, discuss it isn't the right word. But he pretty much terrified Mother and Father out of doing anything to me. He also forbade them both from trying to harm you any further. It's the only time I can remember seeing either of them frightened." Regulus paused. "That was also the night he told me about the Codex. How, um, how old were you when he ...?"

"Eleven," Sirius said with some bitterness. "When I came home for Christmas break. I had nightmares for weeks and couldn't talk to anyone about it. Not that I'd have said anything to Mother and Father. I imagine they'd have tortured me for information about forbidden magic to give to You-Know-Who if they'd known."

Regulus sat quietly for a moment before speaking again. "Sirius ... when you spoke with Grandfather about the Anathema Codex ... did he ... did he tell you anything about ... Mother and Father?"

Sirius looked at him crossly. "Tell me what? That they were a pair of psychotics? I'd known that since I was four."

"Yes, but did he tell you ... why? About what he'd done to them?"

Sirius just looked at him in confusion. Regulus sighed and then took a deep breath before starting.

"Alright, we'll try this another way. Have you ever heard of a group called the Order of the Unbroken Chain?" Sirius's expression indicated he had not. "It's obscure knowledge. The Unbroken Chain was a hard-core blood purist group – or perhaps  _cult_  would be more accurate – that operated in the mid-18th century until the Ministry shut them down. They represented the worst parts of Death Eater views on blood supremacy dialed up to 11."

At that last comment, Sirius looked outright perplexed, and Regulus realized to his surprise he'd actually used a Muggle expression that his Muggle-loving brother didn't know. " _Oh yeah,_ " he thought. " _Sirius was in Azkaban when_ _Spinal Tap_ _came out. I wonder if we can get a VCR in this house without it bursting into flames._ "

"Never mind," he said aloud. "Let's just say they were  _really_  extremist about blood purity. So much so in fact that they didn't want their children breeding outside their extended families. At all."

Sirius shuddered at the implications. "Okay, gross. But what does that have ... to do ... with..." He paused and gave a look of disgust. "Oh no. Don't tell me."

Regulus nodded. "Mother's precious family tree had some inaccuracies. She and Father were actually  _first cousins_ , a relationship that while barely legal in some Muggle cultures should have prevented the two of them from getting married because it's close enough to interfere with the magical potential of children. Which, apparently, it did." He paused. "Did you know that we both have, or rather had, an older brother?"

Sirius shook his head silently, his eyes wide.

"According to Grandfather, his name was Polaris Black. He was born a few years before you, severely deformed and mentally ill. Grandfather was ...  _evasive_  on what happened to him. But his birth revealed the truth of Mother's ancestry. And so, to prevent scandal and ensure that he had at least one viable grandchild to inherit the Lordship, Grandfather forced our parents to take a potion called the Morgause Philtre that had been used by the members of the Unbroken Chain to prevent the effects of inbreeding. Children born under the effects of this potion will be perfectly healthy and usually above-average in magical potential ... but the parents would be cursed somehow. With our parents, the curse took the form of insanity."

Sirius stared at his younger brother for what felt like an eternity. Then, he called out. "Dobby!"

Instantly, Harry's elf who had been temporarily seconded to House Black appeared. "You called, Master Sirius, sir?"

"Yeah, be a pal and fetch us a two bottles of butterbeer from wherever Kreacher's been hiding it." Dobby nodded and popped out. Sirius turned back to Regulus.

"Honestly, I'd ask for firewhisky if I wasn't on medication. Why ... why would you even tell me all that?" Sirius asked almost reproachfully.

Regulus shrugged. "I know it will be hard for you to be stuck here where you have so many bad memories. I thought maybe if you knew the truth, well, you might not be able to forgive Mother and Father, but you could at least ... understand them, maybe?"

Sirius said nothing. When Dobby returned with two butterbeers on a silver platter along with Sirius's afternoon potion, both brothers were silent still.

* * *

_**Meanwhile ...  
** _

The aurors who greeted Buck MacMillan were somewhat surprised at the wizard who arrived at the Ministry's International Portkey Arrival Station. They had been told to greet a foreign dignitary at his arrival and conduct him to the Leaky Cauldron to freshen up (and recover from taking a portkey from the opposite side of the globe). They  _had not_  been told that said "dignitary" would arrive not only dressed as a Muggle, but apparently as a Muggle cowboy complete with jeans, boots, a sheepskin coat, and a cowboy hat.

Auror Proudfoot stepped forward to greet the new arrival. "Mr. MacMillan, welcome to London. On behalf..." was as far as he got before Buck held up a hand to silence him before calmly walking past him to the admissions desk where he spent nearly twenty seconds vomiting into a trash can before pulling a red handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiping his mouth.

"Blimey," he finally said. "That was a helluva trip!" He looked around the roomful of shocked aurors before pulling out his wand and scourgifying the contents of the trash can. "I don't suppose there's any chance that one of you blokes is carrying some breath mints, is there?"

An hour later, Buck had finally been checked into a room at the Leaky Cauldron where he took a moment to brush his teeth before allowing his escorts to convey him to St. Mungo's. Once there, it took only a few minutes of examining the addle-minded Gilderoy Lockhart to confirm his condition.

"Yep. That's Tabula Rasa, alright."

"You're sure, Auror MacMillan?" James Potter asked. Beside him were Aurors Shacklebolt and Proudfoot (the latter of whom still regarded the Australian dubiously).

"I'm not an auror anymore, Chief Potter," Buck replied. "I'm retired now. But I'm not so long gone from service that I don't recognize the signs of Tabula Rasa. Part of my job was confirming that the spell had taken hold after using it on someone sentenced to personality death."

James nodded. "So how did Gilderoy Lockhart learn it?"

"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say the Imperius Curse. Somebody who knew the Tabula Rasa used the Imperius on Lockhart and then had him permanently Obliviate himself." Buck glanced over at the youngest auror who seemed doubtful about his theory. "I assume you know that if you put someone under the Imperius, he can perform most any spell you know so long as it's at your command. The whole point of the nasty bugger is that it allows you to use your victim as a conduit for your will."

"Of course," said James, although Proudfoot's expression suggested it was news to him. "But it still needs to be someone who knows Tabula Rasa in the first place. Could it be an ex-auror from Australia?"

Buck looked back at Lockhart as he considered the question (which had the benefit of allowing him to avoid eye contact with the three British Aurors, just in case). "Nah," he finally said. "Every Australian auror who learns the spell has to swear an oath never to use it except in the performance of his duties. That includes even teaching it to someone who hasn't taken the oath. Even if one of our guys had gone bad enough to use an Imperius, he'd have lost his magic if he used Tabula Rasa on someone without a court-ordered Writ of Personality Death."

Then, he shrugged. "Still, at the end of the day, Tabula Rasa is just a charm. Once somebody puzzled out the arithmancy and runic patterns that allow it to be cast in the first place, it was only a matter of time before someone else reverse-engineered it."

"Can the personality wipe be reversed?" Shacklebolt inquired.

"No," Buck answered shaking his head. "The whole point of the thing was to provide a humane alternative to the death penalty so that wizards and witches could be spared the effects of acting as executioner. Since only the worst of the worst are supposed to suffer personality death, the Australian government has never been very interested in a cure. In fact, the design of Tabula Rasa was intended to be as permanent as we could make it."

Proudfoot frowned. "So there's no way it could be an Australian auror?"

"Absolutely not," Buck lied. After all, he was the one who exploited a somewhat egregious loophole to teach the Tabula Rasa to someone for whom the oath didn't take because he was swearing it under a false identity. Someone who Buck planned to have words with very soon. In the meantime, however, the group returned to James's office so that the Chief Auror could go over the case with his Australian visitor.

"So to sum up," Potter said, "we now think that someone spent most of the past year, if not longer, masquerading as Gilderoy Lockhart for the purpose of infiltrating Hogwarts. Most likely a Metamorphmagus but possibly someone using Polyjuice Potion for an extended period of time. That last theory seems unlikely to me. I can't imagine someone getting away with using a potion that had to be retaken constantly for the better part of a year and would have required them to keep the real Lockhart on hand the whole time to provide hair samples. It's theoretically possible but absurdly unlikely, I think."

James paused diplomatically. "Mr. MacMillan, I've reviewed your own personnel file that the Australian DMLE sent over. I know that Lazarus White was your son-in-law. I don't know if you've been informed yet since you're retired now but ... as part of Lockhart's confession, he claimed to have killed Lazarus White and disposed of his body somewhere in the Outback so that he could take credit for Auror White's work in taking down the Wagga Wagga werewolf pack. Obviously, we have no way to confirm that since Lockhart has no memories and, as you said, was likely under the Imperius when he confessed, but we have forwarded the rest of his confession to other DMLEs in jurisdictions he mentioned to compare with old case files. Everything up to the part about Auror White checks out. Lockhart did make it a practice to obliviate wizards and witches who had vanquished local monsters or dark wizards so that he could take credit for their good work. He claimed that he tried to do the same to your son-in-law who fought back, and Lockhart accidentally killed him. We have no reason to doubt that part of his confession either. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid your son-in-law is almost certainly dead."

Buck lowered his head and wiped his eyes, doing his best to convincingly fake grief. "Thank you, Chief Potter. I had resigned myself to losing Rusty many years ago, but it's still good to have closure."

"You're certainly welcome. While you're here, would you mind looking at some sketches we have of two possible suspects? It's a longshot, and as you said, it's possible that whoever was posing as Lockhart learned the Tabula Rasa from some other means, but I have to follow every lead I can at this point." With that, Potter pulled two artist sketches out of a file folder.

"These two people appear to be involved in the case in some capacity. The male calls himself Mr. Cato, and he supposedly was Gilderoy Lockhart's manservant and the inheritor of most of his wealth. The female called herself Maria Gambrelli, and she ... well, to be blunt, she seduced one of our aurors so that she could steal hairs from him for Polyjuice Potion."

Buck studied the two pictures and struggled not to bark out a laugh. " _I swear, Rusty,_ " he thought. " _I'm going to kick your silly arse for this."_ He thought for a moment about how to proceed before answering.

"Well, I can't rightly say I've met them, but I can tell you who they are and where you need to be lookin'. The woman is a Muggle actress I think by the name of Elke Sommer, though she's a good bit older now than in this picture. I can't remember the name of the Chinese fella, but he's also a Muggle actor. They were both in a movie from nearly thirty or so years ago called  _A Shot In The Dark_. And since most British wizards I've met have never been in a Muggle movie theater in their lives, I think that should tell you who to look for."

He gave Potter what he hoped was a triumphant look. " _Muggleborns_! You're looking for a group of Muggleborns. They're the only ones who might have seen the movie these two actors appeared in together. From America, I reckon. I mean, if they're really Metamorphmagi, there's no way they could be Brits what with the Conscription Act, am I right? But with the situation in America, it would be easy for Metamorphmagic to hide themselves."

And that was true. While the Muggle U.S. government represented the whole nation, Magical America was broken up into several competing government entities separated by fairly porous borders: MACUSA on the Eastern Seaboard, the Confederation of Wizards that pretended to control everything from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, and the Free States of Las Vegas, Chicago and Los Angeles, plus Merlin knew how many small cabals of unaffiliated hedge wizards and witches holed up in towns so small that the ICW had never even heard of them.

Potter nodded thoughtfully at that. "That's true. But why would American Muggle-born wizards want to break Death Eaters out of Azkaban?"

Buck shrugged. "Who can tell with the Americans? To gain access to dark magic from You-Know-Who's stash, maybe? Or perhaps revenge of relatives murdered by Death Eaters?"

"Well, maybe Mr. Cato can tell us. Now that we know he's probably a shapeshifter too, it's time we brought him in for questioning." James rose from his desk to send out a squad of aurors.

"No doubt," Buck said as he distractedly waved away a small bug that had been fluttering around his face. "And, um, while your taking care of your business, I need to take care of mine, so to speak. Can you direct me to the nearest loo?"

James laughed. "Certainly. It's down the corridor. First door on the left."

Buck thanked Potter for the direction and made his way to the men's inside, he checked to make sure he was alone before locking the door. Then, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the floor, his face a mask of pure annoyance. " _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM**_ ," he whispered angrily.

* * *

_**Back at Grimmauld Place ...** _

The two Black brothers had been sipping butterbeers without talking for several minutes while Sirius absorbed Reg's revelation about their parents. Finally, the silence grew too oppressive for his younger sibling.

"Speaking of horrible family secrets," he said with exaggerated lightness, "Severus Snape mentioned that you tried to kill him when you were at school together. I don't suppose that's just a silly exaggeration on his part, it it?."

Sirius took another sip of beer while avoiding eye contact. "What did he say?" he asked in a low voice.

"That you tried to murder him in cold-blood at some point in the autumn of 1976. He said oaths he'd been forced to swear prevent him from saying anything more."

The elder brother barked out a laugh but still wouldn't make eye contact with his sibling. "He's exaggerating. It was ... it was just a silly prank that went wrong. He was never in any danger. And he'd have deserved it if he had gotten hurt or killed, the filthy snake."

"Sirius ...?"

"I've answered your question, Regulus. I do not wish to discuss Snivellus or his accusations anymore. Am I understood?"

Regulus paused with his mouth still open, surprised at his brother's forcefulness. "As you wish ... Lord Black."

Sirius snorted again and took another swig of beer. Silence reigned once more for a long moment before he spoke again.

"So how the hell did you become an Metamorphmagus at seven without me ever finding out?" he asked, changing the subject.

Regulus smiled bitterly. "As I recall, you  _did_  find out. Several times, in fact, over the years. And then Mother or Father would Obliviate you of the knowledge. That's why they never allowed you to take a Remembrall to school with you."

Sirius finally looked up at him with a shocked and somewhat hurt expression, but Regulus merely shrugged. It wasn't like he'd had any say in the matter.

"I've handled Remembrall's since then, though," Sirius objected.

"Over time, false memories blend in among true ones perfectly, especially if the alterations are well-crafted and the target had weak mental defenses. I think you were around ten or eleven the last time you had any knowledge of my powers, and you probably never handled a Remembrall until you were in the auror program or later. Typically, only the top-of-the-line Remembralls have any chance of detecting a false or erased memory more than seven years old, give or take depending on the skill of the wizard altering the memories, the age of the target, and the nature of the memories being altered."

"Uh-huh. But I think I'd know if our loving parents had Obliviated me on a daily basis. How could you have gotten training without my seeing the signs regularly?"

"Do you remember all those times I got shipped off to Aunt Cassiopeia for 'deportment lessons'? Like Aunt Cassie was the sort of person who had any business teaching  _deportment?_ " he said with a laugh.

"So Auntie Cassie was a Metamorphmagus too? Whatever happened to her?"

"Death, most likely. By which I mean I read her obituary back in '92 and that's when the tapestry says she died. But I faked my death so there's no reason she couldn't as well. When I last saw her the summer before I started Hogwarts, she was planning on moving to Marseilles to live as a man for a few years."

Sirius did a double-take. "Live ... as a man? You can do that? Change gender?"

"Yes. In fact, Auntie Cassie insisted that I learn the contraceptive charms for both men and women because it's apparently possible for a male Metamorphmagus to get pregnant if he has sex with another man while in possession of female anatomy." He grimaced. "Auntie Cassie indicated that such pregnancies ... didn't turn out well."

Sirius leaned forward and grinned. "So have you ... you know? As a woman?"

"What are you,  _twelve_?" Regulus said irritably. He looked a way for a few seconds before turning back to meet his amused brother's gaze. "Alright, yes! When I was younger, I ... experimented. And what I learned from those experiments is that I am firmly heterosexual. I have nothing against anyone with different orientations, and I am perfectly capable of transforming into a woman and even seducing a man in that form, a skill helped get you out of Azkaban, I might add. However, I am only sexually attracted to women."

Sirius fought back a snigger, and Regulus gave him a sour look. "And anyway, dear brother," he continued, "it's not like you have room to be judgmental. As I recall, after Marlene McKinnon dumped you, you basically turned into a, oh what was the term that Father used? Ah yes –  _pansexual libertine_."

At that, Sirius's smile faded instantly and his expression darkened. Immediately, Regulus realized that he'd crossed some line but had no idea what it was. After a few seconds, Sirius spoke again but in a colder voice.

"So, since you could look like whoever you wanted, did you ever find a face that could get you someone worth keeping?"

Regulus's own expression darkened at that. "I got married, if that's what you mean, Sirius. I was married for nearly four years. And had a son."

"Well what happened to them? Surely you didn't walk out of a wife and child to live the high-life as Gilderoy Lock...?"

"They died," Regulus interrupted swiftly. He didn't sound sad or angry. His voice was just ... flat. "They were both killed in a werewolf attack in 1985. I got there in time to hold my wife in my arms as she passed. Does that answer your question?"

Sirius looked as though he'd been slapped, and he felt as though he deserved to be. "Oh, Reg. I'm ... I'm so sorry. I didn't think..."

"It's okay, Sirius," Regulus replied in a soft voice. "It will be ten years next April. I realized pretty quick that I had to move on or else I would just wither away until there was nothing left. I chose the former. The past is ... in the past."

It was an ironic statement on Regulus's part, for at that exact second, a large Patronus in the form of a Flemish Giant Rabbit appeared on Sirius's bed, causing his older brother to give out an embarrassing yelp. The Patronus stared at Reg almost angrily before it finally spoke to him in a deep baritone voice with an Australian accent.

"Burn the Cato identity. Now! It's been made by the British aurors. And then, come see me tonight at the Leaky Cauldron, Room 4 at 10 o'clock.  _And for Merlin's sake,_ _ **try**_   _to be discreet for once in your miserable Pureblood idiot life!_ "

Then, the enormous rabbit faded from view, and a shocked Sirius turned to his brother. "What the hell was  _that_?!"

Regulus quickly rose from his chair and pulled out his wand. "Would you believe it was my father-in-law? Dobby!"

The house elf appeared at once. "Dobby," Reg continued. "I need to leave for several hours. In fact, I may not be back until late tonight. Please make sure my brother takes all his potions and that Kreacher ... well, that Kreacher stays the hell away from him."

"Reg, what's going on?" Sirius asked excitedly. "And for the record, I don't need a babysitter or a bodyguard!"

"You need both, brother mine. Your potions will keep you unconscious for several hours, and you're trapped in Grimmauld Place with a possibly deranged house elf who considers you a blood traitor."

"Begging Master Regulus's pardon," Dobby interrupted. "But Dobby seeks clarification. If the Kreacher elf becomes difficult, is Master Regulus authorizing Dobby to use lethal countermeasures."

At that, Regulus's eyes bulged out of his head, and he turned to look at Sirius whose own mouth was hanging open at Dobby's question. It was not the sort of language either of them had  _ever_  heard from a house elf.

"Um," Regulus finally said, "let's  _try_  not to kill Kreacher unless all other tactics fail."

"As you wish, sir," Dobby said with a bow.

Regulus shook his head and darted out of the room, ignoring Sirius's questions as he went. Once outside, and after checking to make sure he was unobserved, he apparated straight to Mr. Cato's room at the Novatel London Waterloo. There, he swiftly banished all of his Muggle clothing and possessions to his room at Grimmauld Place and then pocketed his Gringotts key, though he wasn't terribly worried about the aurors tracking his finances. He'd already converted all of Gilderoy Lockhart's remaining financial assets into British pounds ... followed by Italian lira, German deutsche marks, and finally American dollars before converting them back into galleons and depositing them into Regulus's personal Gringotts account. That left only the products of his time spent as Professor Lockhart of Hogwarts: his polyjuice potions, George Weasley's portkey notes, and all the rest, all of which he placed into a trunk which he shrank down and pocketed. With all signs of Mr. Cato's presence eliminated, Regulus prepared to apparate back to Grimmauld Place.

Just in time to feel the anti-apparation wards fall into place.

"Shit," Regulus said to himself in a moment of understatement.

Minutes later, a squad of five aurors led by James Potter made their way off the elevators and through the stairwell doors to converge on Cato's room. Along the way, they passed an older foreign-looking woman in a maid's uniform pushing a cleaning supply cart down the hall. They nodded to her as they passed, and she muttered something in reply that sounded Polish. Soon, they took up position on either side of the hotel room. There were wards on the door, but the aurors didn't bother to disable them, opting instead to put up a silencing ward and a Muggle-Repelling Charm before simply blasting the door off its hinges. The six wizards rushed inside to find a shocking surprise: the same hotel maid they had just passed lying unconscious on the bed. Cursing loudly, Potter directed his men back the way the came in pursuit of the woman who was apparently their Metamorphmagus quarry in disguise. They found the cleaning cart next to an open stairwell door, and Potter could hear another door up above opening onto the roof level. He and the aurors pursued.

Once out on the roof, they were witness to an unexpected and remarkable sight; a short elderly Asian man who a Muggle might have recognized as famed character actor Burt Kwouk ... and who was wearing a maid's dress whilst waving a wand around to examine the anti-apparation wards. As the aurors emerged, Mr. Cato (who was obviously more spry than he looked), dove behind a ventilation unit, dodging spellfire as he did.

"Give it up, Cato or whoever you really are!" James yelled. "The anti-apparation and anti-portkey wards extend for thirty feet in every direction! There's no way out!"

From behind his cover, Regulus grinned. " _Thanks for the information, Potter,_ " he thought to himself. Then, he swiftly poked his head and wand over the top of the unit. " _ **AVIS OPPUGNO!**_ " Instantly, a flock of ravens erupted from his wand to attack and harry the aurors, none of whom could get a clear shot off through the attacking birds. While the aurors tried to counter his spell, Regulus jumped up and sprinted towards the edge of the roof as fast as he could, and at the edge, he leaped over with all his might. After he'd fallen about twenty feet, he twisted his body around to face the hotel and pointed his wand straight at it. " _ **VENTUS MAXIMUS!**_ " In response, a powerful jet of air shot forth from his wand to strike the building. And as he'd intended, the reverse thrust propelled him away from the building even as he continued falling.

James fought his way through the flock of attacking ravens and reached the edge just in time to see Mr. Cato, still in a dress, blasting away from the hotel. He tried to fire a spell off, but before he could, the other wizard passed through the wards and instantly apparated away, leaving a furious Chief Auror behind.

* * *

_**Later that night at the Leaky Cauldron...** _

There was a soft knock on the door to Buck MacMillen's room. He opened the door to find a nondescript man in simple wizarding attire. Without any questions, the man ducked into the room, and Buck shut and warded the door behind him. He turned towards his guest with his wand still in his hand.

"Well?" he said irritably.

At that, Regulus concentrated and then shifted into the Lazarus White face he'd not worn in nearly a decade.

Buck snorted. "I'm surprised you didn't show up lookin' like Peter bloody Sellers."

Then, he took two steps forward and  _punched his son-in-law in the jaw!_  As Regulus staggered back, Buck also claimed his wand with a wordless Expelliarmus.

"OWW! What the hell, Buck!" Regulus hissed, spitting out blood from his split lip.

" _That_  is for using Tabula Rasa without proper authorization," Buck said as he pocketed the other man's wand. "Now, I'm giving you exactly one minute to explain to me  _why_  you used Tabula Rasa on that Lockhart bloke before I either punch you again, drag you down to the DMLE, or  _both_."

Fifty-five seconds later, Buck grudgingly handed back Regulus's wand while he absorbed what he'd been told. Horcruxes, a seemingly immortal dark lord, and a petrifying basilisk running amok in a school! He thought it was incredible but it all seemed true. For his part, Regulus was surprised that Buck knew what a horcrux was and that his own oaths even allowed him to discuss the matter with the older man. But in the years since Rusty White had left Australia, Buck had risen high in the Australian DMLE before his retirement. He had never served as Chief Auror, but he  _had_  been awarded what he described as level 13 clearance, which meant he had been given a general briefing on the Anathema Codex and its contents by agents of Division 13, the clandestine government organization that served the same function in Australia that the Unspeakables did in the U.K.

"I've never heard of Division 13," Rusty/Regulus said.

"Neither had I until they came calling because of an exceptionally weird case I can't talk about. But I helped them solve it, and in exchange, I got cleared to know about your weird evil book and the weird evil spells in it." With that, he healed the other man's split lip. "And now that we've got the formalities out of the way ..." Buck stepped forward again, this time to pull Regulus into a bear hug which the other man was happy to return.

"I've missed you, Buck."

"And I you, son. Now, sit down and tell me what the hell you've been up to all this time."

The two men talked until after midnight over cheap Australian beer that Buck had brought with him just for this occasion. Regulus briefed Buck on the true adventures that got fictionalized in Lockhart's books while Buck filled Regulus in both on everything that had happened with all his former friends in Australia and also with what he'd learned so far of James Potter's investigation. He agreed to stay in London as long as he plausibly could to spy on the auror investigation and divert it away from Regulus wherever possible.

At around 1:00 a.m., Regulus apparated back to Grimmauld Place, where Dobby was pleased to inform him that both Sirius and Kreacher were still alive.

* * *

_**King's Cross Station  
1 September 1993 at 8:30 a.m.** _

The new school year had come at last, with Harry, Neville, and Lady Augusta traveling by floo to Diagon Alley and then taking a Muggle taxi to King's Cross Station. Since his return to Britain, Neville had been in a much better mood than when he left, though Harry had been extremely cautious to completely avoid the topic of Theo No-Name. Instead, he spent the few days before the Hogwarts Express peppering Neville about his experiences in Africa. To Harry's surprise, his friend had learned a great deal of theory about the Animagus transformation. Instead of practically criminalizing it as Wizarding Britain had done, the wizards of Africa placed a strong emphasis on all forms of self-transfiguration. Uagadou, Africa's preeminent school of magic, actually offered Animagus training as a popular elective, and Neville had been told that supposedly almost half of all African wizards and witches were Animagi (compared to the five or so out of the entire British population who voluntarily registered over the last century). This included several wizards who worked on his family's magical farms in Africa, many of whom he'd gotten to know and befriend. They had even offered to give him Animagus instruction, but he demurred due to British attitudes towards the gift.

Oh, and he'd also survived a nundu attack on the farm during his stay, though Neville asked Harry to not share that detail with his grandmother. Once he got over his shock, Harry agreed.

Unfortunately, Neville's mood wouldn't last. Almost as soon as the trio had passed through the barrier, Neville tensed up, and his face assumed an angry expression that Harry barely recognized on his normally affable friend. He soon realized why: further down the platform, a group students were gathered around Theo Nott. To Harry's surprise, several seemed to be interceding on his behalf against a larger group that had accosted him. For just a moment, the crowd parted just enough for Harry and Theo to see each other clearly. Harry inclined his head slightly in a way that said " _Need some help?_ " Theo responded with a barely perceptible shake of his own head that meant he did not want Harry involved. Harry gave the slightest of nods in return and then turned to Neville.

"Come on. Let's get on the train and find a compartment." The two boys headed for the train without looking back at Theo No-Name.

As for Theo himself, moments earlier, he had been surprised at the tense situation in which he found himself. Inexplicably, it was actually a law of the Wizengamot that all children attending Hogwarts must ride on the Hogwarts Express, which meant that Theo and dozens of other children who already lived in Scotland nevertheless had to travel all the way to King's Cross in order to spend six hours on a train riding back. Accordingly, Nymphadora had apparated him and his luggage to the station before accompanying him through the portal. Once on the other side, she gave the boy a hug and then left him to board the train while she went to speak to some of the aurors on the platform. While she'd been aware that there would be a DMLE presence on the platform today, even she was surprised by the presence of a dozen aurors ... and one Dementor at the far end of the platform held in check by two aurors and their respective Patronuses. Somewhat oddly, everyone on the platform seemed intent on simply ignoring the Dementor except for its guards, but for some reason, Harry paused at the steps leading onto the train to look back at the hideous creature. And to Harrys surprise, the Dementor  _seemed to look straight back at him_! Shaken, Harry hurried onto the train.

Unfortunately, Theo had no opportunity to observe that bit of oddness because as soon as Tonks had moved away, he had immediately been confronted by the Pureblood welcoming committee. Theo had expected a confrontation at some point with Warrington, Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle, but he was surprised and somewhat shaken by the cross-section of Purebloods from other Houses that joined them. Zacharias Smith, Hannah Abbot, Ernie MacMillan, Cedric Diggory, and an extremely uncomfortable looking Justin Finch-Fletchley from Hufflepuff. Cho Chang, Roger Davies, and Marietta Edgecombe from Ravenclaw. Oliver Wood, Lavender Brown, and (naturally) Cormac McLaggen from Gryffindor. Plus others that Theo didn't even know. There were nearly two dozen in all, and Theo thought they made a daunting presence.

"Can I help you?" Theo asked mildly.

Cho Chang nudged Roger Davies who stepped forward. Apparently, they had not decided on who would be the group's spokeswizard beforehand. " _Harry would have planned this better_ ," Theo thought idly. " _Whatever_ _this_ _is_."

Davies coughed to clear his throat and stepped forward. "We do not wish for help or anything else from you, Mr. No-Name. That is why we are here. It perhaps would have been better if you'd had the option of going to some other school. Maybe something will change and that will be possible later. Durmstrang might be a good fit for you."

Crabbe and Pansy laughed at that, but no one else did. By this time, a crowd of students from all Years (along with some parents) was gathering around to observe the proceedings. Suddenly, Theo began to regret communicating to Harry that he should move along and not intervene. The boy didn't want any of the people who were still friends to get caught up in the effects of the Sanction. But now, he realized that this was the largest group of people whose hostility had been triggered the Sanction that he'd been around at one time, and suddenly, a potential riot seemed a real possibility. He started looking around for the nearest auror in case things got hairy, but they all seemed more focused on their fear of Death Eaters flying down from the skies to attack while ignoring a potential lynch mob in the making.

"Regardless," continued Davies pompously, "on behalf of the entire Hogwarts student body, we are here to inform you that  _you are not welcome_. Not among us. Not among any of our houses. Not among any decent people at Hogwarts. Stick to yourself. Or you'll be  _made_  to stick to yourself."

"What's that, Davies?" said someone else who was pushing his way through the crowd. It was an angry Bobby Lattimer. " _On behalf of the entire Hogwarts student body?!_  Did I hear that right? One would think that if it involved the  _entire Hogwarts student body_ , then perhaps  _the Head Boy might have been notified._ " With that, Lattimer scanned the group, and he frowned at the Hufflepuff contingent.

"I suppose I might have expected this from Smith. But  _even you_ ,  _Prefect_ Diggory?" he said accusingly.

Cedric blushed and suddenly looked uncomfortable with the situation, but then Cho Chang nudged him as if to provide moral support.

"Look, Bobby," he said almost apologetically. "I'm sorry it has to be this way. But it's got to be done."

"But why, Cedric?" implored an anxious-looking Susan Bones from the edge of the onlookers. Although a Pureblood, she was protected by the same magical protection that shielded her guardian, DMLE Director Amelia Bones, and she was horrified by how her fellow Hufflepuffs were acting. "Why does  _it_  have to be done? And what even is  _it_  anyway? Other than an angry mob frightening a thirteen-year-old boy for no reason!"

"But there  _is_  a reason!" exclaimed Pansy Parkinson. "He's an  _outcast_. He shouldn't be in our world. He's ... unclean. Why, he's even worse than a Mud...!"

"Don't. Finish. That. Sentence!" Sue Li snarled at the bigoted Pureblood. Pansy actually flinched at the Ravenclaw girl's hostility. But before she could respond, another student stepped forward.

"I'm sorry," Anthony Goldstein said amiably. "I wanted to make sure I heard that right. You said Theo No-Name is ...  _unclean_. I mean, all that's happened is that his father put some spell on him, and now you all say he's  _unclean_. Really?!"

"Anthony, please," said Ernie MacMillan. "You're a Halfblood. It's not something you'd understand." At that, many of the Halfbloods present took offense, but MacMillan was oblivious to them.

"Oh, I think we all understand just fine, actually," Kevin Entwhistle said ominously as he moved to stand next to his friend Anthony and also next to a surprised Theo. Several other Halfbloods and Muggleborn in the crowd also moved closer, and Theo's "welcoming party" suddenly began to feel outnumbered.

"Why do you even care?" said Lavender Brown. "In addition to being an outcast, he's also a  _Slytherin_!" Then, she quickly turned to Pansy. "No offense," she said apologetically, but Pansy just glared at her.

"First they came for the Slytherin outcast," Anthony recited, "but I said nothing because I wasn't a Slytherin outcast. Then, they came for the Hufflepuff Muggleborn, but I said nothing because I wasn't a Hufflepuff Muggleborn. I know how that story ends. A lot of us do, actually."

"I have  _no idea_  what you're gabbing about Goldstein," spat Cormac McCleggan.

"It's a riff on a famous poem by a Muggle named Niemöller," Anthony said in a strangely tight voice. Sue Li suddenly looked at him with concern. She knew what it meant when her friend got into a mood like his current one.

"My grandfather, Hershel Goldstein, taught me the original version when I was younger. He and my nana, Rachel Goldstein, are just Muggles so I doubt their wisdom would mean much to any of you esteemed people. But they've always given me a lot to think about." He smiled suddenly, and an odd gleam came into his eyes as he surveyed the Purebloods who had accosted Theo. "Wonderful couple, my Grandpa and Nana Goldstein. Do you know they've been together for fifty years now? They met on a train in 1943, and they've stayed together ever since."

"Yes, yes," drawled a bored Pansy Parkinson. "It sounds very romantic."

"Oh  _no_ , Miss Parkinson. No, no, no!" Anthony replied with seeming amusement as the gleam in his eyes grew more and more intense. "It wasn't  _the least bit_  romantic. You see, the train in question was on its way to  _Dachau_."

It was not a true silence that fell on the scene, for it was still a busy train station full of people. Nevertheless, a frisson of shock and confusion passed through all those who heard the boy and understood his meaning. Sue Li gasped and put her hand over her mouth, while Kevin's head snapped around to look at Anthony in shock. Neither had ever known that their Ravenclaw friend was just two generations removed from concentration camp survivors. Justin Finch-Fletchley closed his eyes and pinched the brow of his nose with his fingers, his discomfort at getting dragged into the group of students who came to bully Theo increasing exponentially. The rest of the Muggleborn and Muggle-raised alike were stunned both the boy's comment and its significance to the present scene. The Purebloods, on the other hand, simply looked around in bafflement, both at Anthony Goldstein's words and everyone else's reaction to them.

"I'm ... sorry, Mr. Goldstein," said Cedric Diggory hesitantly. "I'm afraid I don't know what that means."

Anthony's smile grew colder, almost turning into a sneer. "Of course you don't, Mr. Diggory.  _You're a_ _Pureblood_ _!_ " And with that, he turned and put his arm around a surprised Theo No-Name before escorting him away from the mob. "Come on, Theo. Can I call you Theo? It's apparently the only option. Anyway, I insist you sit in our compartment. Say, have you ever tried rugelach?"

Susan Bones, Sue Li, and several other students followed behind Anthony and Theo. Kevin stopped and looked back to Justin, crooking an eyebrow as he did. For several seconds, Justin's face showed his conflict before he finally sighed deeply and separated from the group he'd reluctantly joined to follow the one that was now leaving.

"Justin?" Ernie MacMillan called out.

"Sorry, Ernie," he said apologetically. "I'm just ... sorry." Then, he shrugged his shoulders before running to catch up to Kevin. " _Stupid Hufflepuff loyalty_ ," he muttered to himself as he went.

* * *

Once aboard the train, Harry and Neville made their way to the back where their group usually congregated. Neville was still tense, but Harry was more relaxed. He'd spoken with Theo over the summer, and they'd both agreed it was unwise for Theo to force a confrontation with Neville until Harry had better gauged how deeply the Sanction was affecting him. Harry had also surreptitiously observed the scene involving Theo that had played out on the platform. He was surprised but pleased to see Theo walk off under the apparent protection of a group of students sympathetic to his plight. Given the number of people who seemed to have come to the outcast boy's defense, Harry was already revising his plans for how to best help Theo in the coming year.

Inside the compartment, the two boys found the majority of their regular cohort. Hermione was giving Amy Wilkes some pointers on Second Year Transfiguration, Blaise was sitting off by himself working on a crossword puzzle, and Luna was intently reading a paperback book. Harry craned his neck to read the cover. It was  _Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming_  by some Muggle psychologist he'd never heard of.

"Lucid dreaming?" Harry inquired.

"Um-hmm," Luna replied dreamily without looking up. "Hermione got it for me. I told her I'd been having odd dreams that kept me from sleeping well but that I couldn't recall when I woke up. She said this might help."

"Okay, but what  _is_  lucid dreaming?" Neville asked.

"First things first," Hermione said as she jumped up and gave the boy a hug. "It's so good to see you again! I've missed you both this summer. And Neville, you never responded to my owls!"

Neville shrugged sheepishly. "Gram wanted me kept incomm... um."

"Incommunicado," Harry said idly as he stowed his carry-on bag.

"Yeah, that. She was paranoid about Death Eaters."

"Sensible, I suppose," the bushy-haired girl said as she sat down. "And to answer your question, lucid dreaming means that you know when you're dreaming and can therefore shape the environment of your dreams. It helps with nightmares and also lets you remember dreams more clearly when you wake up. Now, tell me all about your summer. I know  _nothing_  about wizarding Africa."

Neville nodded in some confusion at both her explanation and her change of topic. Then, he looked around the compartment. "Sure, but first, who's missing?"

"Ginny's running late," Amy said. "Apparently, it's a family tradition."

"Ah, there they come now," Harry said pointing out the window at the platform, which was nearly empty except for an excited gaggle of red-headed children (plus Jim Potter who was struggling with a large container of some kind) running for the train which was minutes from departing. Everyone in the compartment chuckled at the perpetually tardy Weasleys.

Except for Blaise.

"Ginny's the last then. I already wrote Theo last summer and said I didn't want him sitting with us." The group's laughter died instantly.

"Why would you do that?" Hermione asked quietly. Blaise didn't even look up from his crossword puzzle.

"Because he's under the Sanction, and anyone who hangs out with him will get treated like garbage. So I dumped him."

No one spoke. Neville stared intently at Blaise, who finally looked up and noticed his expression.

"What, Longbottom? I'm a Slytherin. And an especially slimy one, according to some people in your House. I'm not going to maintain a relationship that would be social poison. That would just be silly." The Gryffindor didn't respond, but Blaise smiled at him anyway. "And honestly I don't see why you're getting mad at  _me_. At least I've got an actual  _reason_  to shun the boy."

Neville's face flushed, while Hermione looked back and forth between the two anxiously, not knowing how to respond to this unanticipated exchange. And then, things got weird.

" _Ooo! Shiny!_ " Luna exclaimed as she practically jumped out of her seat with excitement.

"Um ... what?" Harry asked as the others simply stared at the girl.

"Neville's fury-flies! They're all shiny, almost metallic. And purple!" she paused and narrowed her eyes as if to study something in the air around Neville that only she could perceive (which, as Hermione and Harry knew, was actually the case). Despite himself, Neville looked around nervously, as if searching for imaginary insects crawling on him. Luna tilted her head.

"Or maybe they're indigo," she muttered. "I should probably invest in a color chart or something like that."

"I'm nearly certain I'll regret this," Blaise drawled. "But what do metallic indigo fury-flies signify?"

"Oh, I have no idea," Luna replied without taking her eyes from an unnerved Neville Longbottom. "I've never seen any before today, but the train platform was simply  _crawling_  with them." She tapped her lips with her forefinger as she thought. Then, the girl took a deep breath.

" _THEO NO-NAME!_ " she practically shouted at Neville, who jumped slightly in response. Luna's eyes widened in marvel as she studied the air around him. "Fascinating," she said in a soft voice before reaching for her bag to pull out a journal with the word " _Mysterio!_ " written on it in bright rainbow colors.

Everyone simply perplexed at her actions except Hermione, who frowned instead.

"Luna," she said disapprovingly. "What have I told you about experimenting on your friends?"

"That only through the scientific method can we truly comprehend the world around us," Luna replied as she began writing notes on her observations.

"No," Hermione said. "Well ... yes. But I meant the  _other_ bit."

Luna looked over at her in surprise and then blushed herself. "That it's unethical to use my friends to research nargles and wrackspurts and everything else without informed consent?"

"That's the one."

Luna looked at Neville contritely. "I'm sorry. I apologize for taking advantage of your condition for experimental purposes."

"That's ... okay," he said slowly, still confused about what just happened.

Then, all of them jumped when the doors to the compartment slid open and a breathless Ginny practically burst in and fell into a seat between Amy and Luna.

"Honestly! I'm a twelve-year-old girl! How is it possible that I was ready to leave  _an hour_  before all the boys in my family?! Not to mention, we had to go back to the house at the last minute because the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-Late forgot something he just couldn't do without!"

Ginny looked around and finally noticed everyone's expressions. "What did I miss?" she asked.

"I couldn't even begin to explain it," Harry said. "Out of curiosity, what did Jim forget that was so important?"

Ginny favored him with a long-suffering expression. "Would you believe  _his snake_! _"_

* * *

_**Meanwhile two cars down...** _

Jim Potter was somewhat nervously holding court in an overcrowded compartment containing himself, Ron, Seamus, Dean, and most of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. With a bit of a flourish, he removed the cover to the box he'd been carrying to reveal a glass terrarium containing a two-foot-long snake with brown and yellow scales.

"This ... is Steve," he said as he looked up at his Gryffindor friends trying to gauge their reactions.

"Is he poisonous?" Katie Bell asked nervously.

"No. He's a California kingsnake. Completely non-poisonous and completely docile unless someone really tries to provoke him. Kingsnakes are one of the most common snakes owned as household pets in America."

"Cool," Dean said with a smile. Jim relaxed as the rest of his friends crowded around somewhat excitedly, any fears about him being the Heir of Slytherin forgotten for the time being.

"How long have you had him?" Seamus asked.

"About a week," Jim said. "He was a late birthday present from my parents."

Actually, Jim thought that Steve was a late birthday present from his mother which she had presented to him a week before. Meanwhile, his father stood beside her holding perhaps least convincing smile Jim had ever seen on a human being before heading off to his private office from which he did not emerge until late that night. Still, Jim finally got his pet snake, and he wasn't going to look a gift reptile in the mouth.

"I bet it will be fun," Alicia Spinnet said, "finally having someone else you can speak Parseltongue with."

Jim glanced at Ron sitting beside him as the boy swallowed and tugged at the collar of his jumper. "Yeah," Jim said with a mischievous smile. "That  _will_  be nice."

* * *

_**Sometime later ...** _

The excitement over Jim's new pet snake died down eventually, and talk soon turned to Quidditch, as Oliver insisted on outlining his plans for the season. If anyone present knew about Oliver's membership in Theo No-Name's "welcoming committee," no one raised the topic. After an hour or so, the door opened, and Percy popped his head in.

"Sorry to intrude," he said. "George, it's time for the Prefect Meeting." George nodded gravely while Fred rolled his eyes and Lee Jordan snicked softly. George frowned at them both before rising to follow Percy down the hallway.

"So how has Fred been treating you?" Percy asked.

"Eh. He's a little standoffish, but he's coming round," George replied.

"Is he?" Percy said while trying to hide a smile "You might want to check your badge then."

Frowning, George looked down at his chest and then twisted the badge around so he could read the words now emblazoned on it. "Big ... Head ... Prefect?"

Percy clucked his tongue softly. "Not as imaginative as I'm accustomed to. Can I assume that you were the one responsible for coming up with the quips and verbal humor?"

George blushed slightly. "When we put the spellwork together, it was supposed to say  _Big Head Boy_. You know, back when we assumed that you were going to  _be_  Head Boy." He grimaced at the intended butt of his and Fred's jokes. "Sorry, Percy."

Percy seemed not to even notice the apology. " _Big Head Boy_. Yes, that  _is_  rather clever, I suppose." He turned and smiled at the younger twin. "Sorry you didn't get to use it."

George shook his head and tried to use a Finite on the altered badge to no avail. Percy pulled his own wand.

"I know from well-honed experience that it generally requires multiple Finites to undo a prank pulled off by you and Fred. On three." The boy counted off before he and George fired off simultaneous Finites, and with a flash, the message on the badge changed back to read "5th Year Gryffindor Prefect."

"Thanks, Percy," George said distractedly.

"It's okay, George. He'll come around." George nodded and a few seconds later, they were at the very first compartment on the train. Percy opened the door to the Prefect's Compartment and strode in confidently. George followed only to stop as all the other Prefects stared at him and the badge he wore in shock. Sure, the letter they'd all received had  _said_  George Weasley would be the 5th Year Gryffindor Prefect, but they'd all assumed it was just another Weasley prank they'd somehow pulled on the school's Prefect Announcements letter. None of them actually thought it had been  _true_.

"Hi there, um, fellow prefects," said George as he surveyed the compartment before giving a nervous wave.

There was a long horrified silence that only ended when 7th Year Slytherin prefect Titus Mitchell let out an extremely vulgar string of expletives.

* * *

_**Meanwhile ...** _

After a few hours with his friends catching up on their various summer adventures, Harry decided it was time to stretch his legs.

"If you guys don't mind," he said, "I'm stepping out for a bit. I need to touch base with Adrian Pucey about some Quidditch matters."

"You planning on seeing anyone else while you're out and about?" Neville said in an oddly cool voice.

Harry shrugged. "You never know who you'll bump into. It is a fairly small train, after all." Then, he stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind him, with Neville watching intently the whole time. Meanwhile, Luna was watching  _Neville_  just as intently while making sketches in her journal.

" _Fascinating_ ," she muttered again under her breath.

From there, Harry casually made his way from the rear of the train towards the front, stopping from time to time to drop in on friends, allies, and acquaintances too important to ignore. Daphne needed reassurance that their family alliances were still strong and that Harry wasn't going to do something  _silly_  over the Theo No-Name situation. Milly Bulstrode needed reassurance that she'd get a fair shot at Beater for the Slytherin Quidditch team now that it was official that Derrick and Bole's parents had revoked their Quidditch privileges. He passed by another compartment where the two of them were sitting morosely, and they both gave him foul looks as he did.

Eventually, he finally found Adrian Pucey, the new Quidditch captain, who was already itching to talk plays. The team had lost Flint who was technically returning as as "Eighth Year" but would be ineligible for Quidditch. However Graham Montague was quite talented (though not in Harry's league) and eager to get back on the team now that his grades had improved enough to please his parents. If they could get the Beater and Seeker situations resolved, the Slytherins might still be able to field a strong team. Meanwhile, in response to Harry's discrete hints, Pucey bluntly admitted that he had no particular aversion to Theo No-Name as his family was not affected by the Sanction, but neither did he have any particular fondness for the boy he barely knew nor any desire to endanger his standing in Slytherin House over the matter. He also advised Harry that both Graham Montague and Cassius Warrington, the only two plausible candidates for Chaser, were from Noble families and would likely be hostile to Theo. Harry thanked Pucey for his honesty and then left to continue his journey towards the front of the train.

As Harry entered the next car, he saw his twin coming from the other direction.

"Hey, stranger!" Jim said with a smile.

"Please, we talked by Floo two days ago," Harry replied easily. "It's not my fault you spent most of your summer learning kung fu in Nepal or whatever."

Jim laughed. At that moment, a compartment door opened up, and Theo poked his head out. "Harry?" he stage whispered.

Harry looked around and saw that no one was watching, and then he and Jim entered the compartment that Theo was sharing with Anthony, Kevin, both Sues (Li and Bones), and a few other Muggle-born and Muggle-raised students. Harry was somewhat surprised to see Justin Finch-Fletchley among them and looking rather tense. Harry popped out his wand and used the Color-Changing Charm to tint the windows black before sitting down.

"Well, I see you've made some new friends, Theo," he noted.

"And I see you are unwilling to be seen in the same room with Theo, Potter," Susan Li said with asperity.

"Easy, Sue," Theo interrupted. "It's okay. Me and Harry talked over the summer. We're good."

"Or as good as things are going to get once we're both in the Slytherin dorms," Harry said while making a face. "I've been doing a headcount on who all is affected by the Sanction. It's probably just under half of the student body, but when you add in the number of kids who will stay neutral to avoid conflict, it will be a lot more. And a clear majority of the Slytherins will either be affected or unwilling to side with you even if they're not affected."

"Good thing, you've got a private room, at least," Anthony said to Theo.

Harry smiled smugly. "Yeah, that was clever of me, wasn't it."

"You set that up?!" Jim exclaimed with a grin.

Harry nodded. "I actually got the idea from something you'd said about how Ron, Seamus, and Dean put up a dividing wall in your dorm room last year after everything thought you were the Heir of Slytherin. With the layout of the Slytherin dorms, I realized it would be simple to set up private rooms, so I wrote to the Headmaster about it. Apparently, the Hogwarts house elves can make fairly significant modifications to the interior structure of the school when asked to do so by someone with sufficient authority. Or possibly just someone who asks them nicely. He was vague about that."

He turned to Justin, who still seemed lost in thought. "And I must say I'm glad to see you here, Justin. From what I saw, it looked like you were on the other side during that confrontation out on the platform."

Justin blushed but then shrugged instead of saying anything.

"It's okay," said Susan Bones. "He made the right choice in the end."

"Well, I  _had_  to." The Muggleborn swallowed painfully, as his throat was suddenly very dry. "My grandfather fought in the War."

"The War?" Jim asked. "What was a Muggle doing fighting in a wizarding war?"

"He means World War II," Anthony said quietly. "A Muggle conflict."

Justin nodded and looked over to the other boy. "He was an officer in the 11th Armored Division – the Black Bulls. He was there when they liberated Bergen-Belsen. He never talked about it when I was growing up. My Mum said Grandad never talked about it with  _her_  when she was growing up either. But after my First Year, once I'd learned what the word  _Mudblood_  actually meant, I asked him about what he saw. It was horrible. Almost fifty years later, and he still was remembered how those poor people ..." He shook his head to clear it. "Anyway, after what you said out on the platform. I just couldn't stay on that side. It would have been like betraying him, like ... letting him down."

Kevin reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "It's okay, Justin. You made the right decision in the end."

"Yes," Justin said dejectedly. "I just don't know how long I can  _keep_  making the right decision."

"What do you mean?" asked Anthony.

"The Wizengamot," Harry said softly. Justin looked up at him sharply. Then, he gave a mirthless laugh.

"Of course. It figures if anyone would know ahead of time, it would be you."

"I don't know any details," said Harry. "Just things I've put together in my head."

"What are you two talking about?" asked Susan Bones.

"Well," Justin said to the group, "it turns out that I'm not just a Muggleborn. I'm also the first wizard in a long line of squibs that descend from a now dormant Noble family. One with no living Pureblood or Halfblood descendants but which hasn't been struck from the lists yet. And one open-minded enough to allow Muggleborns who can prove their squib lineage to inherit everything in the absence of a  _proper_  heir. At some point this year, I'll be sworn in as Lord Conditional and will have to swear oaths of loyalty to the Wizengamot before I can receive my inheritance."

"And when you do, the Sanction will affect you just as strongly as it does MacMillan, Parkinson, and all the rest," said Theo. "It's okay, Justin. I don't blame you for it. Honestly, I don't even blame  _them_  for it. My father ... my  _former_  father is 100% at fault."

"Thank you, Theo," Justin said sadly. "I just hope you feel the same a year from now."

* * *

_**Later still ...** _

The Prefects Meeting was only just wrapping up when everyone noticed with great surprise that the Hogwarts Express seemed to be unexpectedly slowing down. Bobby Lattimer pulled out a gold pocket watch that had once belonged to his father's father, a Muggle train conductor who had been awarded it on the day of his retirement. Bobby's parents had refurbished it (and added an enchantment to make sure it was always accurate) before gifting it to him when he became Head Boy.

"We can't be pulling into the station," he said. "It's far too soon."

"What have you done now, Weasley?" Titus Mitchell said accusingly.

"Honestly, Mitchell," George replied with some annoyance. "I'm flattered that you think Fred and me are diabolical geniuses on par with Dumbledore himself. But we didn't do anything to the Prefect's letters, I didn't mug somebody else and steal their Prefect's badge, and we certainly aren't clever enough or stupid enough to muck about with the Hogwart's Express."

"Enough, both of you," snapped Penelope Clearwater, the new Head Girl. Percy opened his mouth to speak but then shut it as soon as she glanced in his direction. They'd talked over the summer about the fact that she was Head Girl and he was  _not_ , as they'd been expecting, Head Boy. She'd asked him if it was going to be "weird," and he gallantly assured him that it would not. But now that they were here together wearing their respective badges, Percy was finally confronted with the fact that his girlfriend technically outranked him in the Hogwarts organizational tree, a fact which did indeed feel  _weird_.

Meanwhile, Bobby opened the door and stepped out into the corridor before casting the Sonorous Charm. "ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS. THIS IS THE HEAD BOY. AS YOU'VE NOTICED, THE TRAIN HAS STOPPED PREMATURELY. DO NOT BE ALARMED. ALL STUDENTS SHOULD REMAIN IN THEIR COMPARTMENTS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."

Back in the last car, Neville looked out the window and noticed it was growing quite cloudy and dark outside. Everyone was muttering questions, but none of them knew what was happening. Luna looked around the room with a quizzical expression before shrugging, pulling out her wand to cast a quick Lumos, and then returning to her book.

Amy shuddered. "It is just me, or it getting colder in here."

"It's not just you," Hermione said. "I think I'll head forward to find a prefect and see what's going on."

"Hermione," said Neville with some frustration. "The Head Boy  _just said_  we were to remain in our compartments."

"No," she responded as she grabbed her bag and opened the door. "He said we  _should_  remain in our compartments. Obviously, that was meant as more of a suggestion than a command. And anyway, I'm a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors  _rush in_!"

"That's. Not. A. Compliment!" Blaise spat through gritted teeth.

"No matter," Hermione said cheerfully. "We're still all on the Hogwarts Express. I'm sure it's perfectly safe whatever's going on." And with that, she was out the door. Blaise gave an exasperated sigh before following her.

"Coming, Longbottom?" he said.

"But ... they  _just said_ to stay in our compartments!" Neville said again in frustration.

Blaise shrugged. "So they did, for all the good that does us. Oh well, you can stay here if you wish. If there are any problems, I'll look after our Hermione myself. I'm sure your presence would be completely superfluous."

With that, the Slytherin sauntered out of the compartment. After he left, Neville squeezed his eyes shut and then banged the back of his head against the cushioned headrest in frustration. "Dammit," he muttered as he rose to follow the other two. Amy and Ginny looked at each other for a second before standing up as one. But before they could take a step, Neville whirled around on them with an angry expression and a single finger pointed in their direction.

"No!" he barked, and the intensity of his gaze paralyzed the two girls. Then, he jabbed his finger in the direction of their seat, and the two girls dropped back down onto the bench in unison. Satisfied, Neville turned and strode off in the direction of Hermione and Blaise. For her part, Luna didn't even seem to notice that anyone had left.

Nor did Luna or either of her two year-mates notice the patterns of frost that were quickly growing across the surface of the windows.

* * *

Near the front of the train, Harry and Jim had also ignored the Head Boy's instructions and stepped out into the open corridor. By now, there was a thick spiderweb of frost on the train windows, and the cloud cover outside was so dark that it seemed like twilight rather than midday. Instantly, both boys noticed that they could see their breath from the cold.

"What's causing this?" Jim said nervously as he tried to look through the frosty window. Suddenly, Harry grabbed him by the arm.

"At a guess," he said in a sudden fright, "I'd say it's probably that."

Jim turned in the direction his brother was pointing and then gasped in terror. At the entryway to the train car was a tall figure in a tattered black robes. A hood totally covered its face and its sleeves were long enough so that its hands could not be seen. Nevertheless, both boys knew at once what it was – a Dementor.

"You shouldn't be here," Harry called out with far more confidence than he felt. "The train was searched before anyone boarded it. There aren't any Death Eaters here."

The Dementor said nothing but instead floated towards the two boys in silence. As it moved closer, the area around it seemed to turn black, as if the shadows it cast had come alive and were slithering along the walls in its wake. The air grew ever colder, and the windows closest to the creature were soon caked in frost. From somewhere in the distance, Harry heard the soft chittering of a doxie and perhaps a very faint scream. Immediately, Harry focused on his Occlumency training and bolstered his psychic defenses as much as he could to block out the effects of the Dementor's aura.

"Who's that?" Jim said suddenly and anxiously.

"It's a Dementor, Jim, obviously!" Harry glanced at his brother in surprise at his question, but he was startled by Jim's appearance. The Boy-Who-Lived had gone completely pale at the sight of the Dementor and already looked unsteady on his feet.

"No, the  _scream_...  _who's that screaming_?!" Jim said shakily before collapsing on the floor. The Dementor inclined his head slightly and then floated more quickly in their direction. Harry popped his wand and stepped forward between his brother and the Dementor with as much courage as he could muster.

" _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM!**_ " he cried out. In response, a stream of silvery mist poured from his wand. He was disappointed – Harry had thought that actual proximity to a Dementor might cause him to produce a corporeal Patronus. The mist struck the Dementor who hissed and pulled back a few feet. Then, it seemed to study both Harry and the unconscious Jim as if trying to decide between two targets. Suddenly, it lunged forward again despite Harry's Patronus which soon wavered under the strain.

Harry cast again. " _ **EXPECTO ... PATRONUM!**_ " His incantation was weaker now. Despite his best efforts to block the hideous creature's psychic attack, Harry could feel its seeping through his mental defenses. He had a powerful and disturbing impression of being covered in icy-cold worms that were digging, burrowing into his mind. The mist sprang forth from his wand, but it was even weaker than before, and it barely seemed to slow the Dementor at all. The creature raised up an arm, and its fetid sleeve fell away to reveal an emaciated bony hand that stank of death and decay. It pointed a finger at him as if in accusation. All Harry could see now was the Dementor. Everything else was covered in complete darkness. He heard the woman's scream again, though faintly, but he could feel tiny sharp-fingered things crawling up his back as they chittered hungrily.

" _ **EX ... EXPECTO ... PAT...!**_ " Harry's third attempt to summon a Patronus failed completely, and he dropped to one knee in front of his unconscious brother. Now, both of the Dementors hands were exposed as they reached for his face. They stank of rot, and in his increasing delirium and terror, Harry thought he saw maggots crawling over them. He heard the faint scream again, this time accompanied by a booming jubilant voice from somewhere far away that cried out " _Suppertime!_ "

And then, the worst thing of all: The Dementor  _spoke!_

"[ _I/We] kNoooW [your] FaAaAaAaCE [_ _ **DIE! DIE! DIE!**_ _]_

As the Dementor was just about to touch him, Harry's vision went blurry. Desperately, he tried to remember the words of the Patronus Charm, but somehow, the knowledge had vanished from his memory and his wand felt like heavy lead in his hands. He exhaled heavily, and fog – and perhaps something more than fog – came out of his mouth and was instantly sucked up into whatever was hidden by the Dementor's hood. Harry focused all his remaining will and raised his wand in a quivering hand, desperate to try then Patronus one last time before the creature Kissed him and his brother both.

" _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM!**_ "

Suddenly, Harry was awash in a brilliant blinding light. The feeling of terror and despair that the Dementor had provoked vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The boy still felt icy-cold, but it was different now. Instead of the soul-draining grave chill of the Dementor, this was an invigorating cold that somehow roused he boy from his near-stupor. There was also a faint aftertaste of salt water in his mouth, and he strangely felt as if he were being raised up into the air. But above all, Harry was suddenly overcome with a sense of hope and an absolute certainty that he was going to be okay.

The magical light faded then, but so did the darkness as the interior lights of the train suddenly came back on. The Dementor was gone, and a low moan behind him indicated that Jim had regained consciousness. Harry looked around, and through the rapidly melting ice on the windows, he saw something as heartening as it was unexpected. The Dementor was now flying away from the train as fast as it could ... with Elby, Neville Longbottom's grizzly bear Patronus, in hot pursuit. Harry turned around and was pleased to see a shaken but confident Neville with his wand still drawn and flanked by Hermione and Blaise, the latter of whom was peering out the window with an amused expression.

"Heh.  _Exit, pursued by a bear_ ," he said with a cheeky grin. Immediately, Hermione punched him in the arm before stepping forward to attend to the Potter boys.

"Are you two alright? Neither of you got Kissed or anything at least. Do you need some chocolate?"

"Yes, no, and sure, why not," Harry replied as he pulled himself off the floor before helping a still woozy Jim up as well.

"Well, that was ... perfectly awful," Jim said. "Is everyone okay?"

"I was going to ask you that," Harry said. "You were the one who passed out."

Jim blushed and frowned at that, and Harry regretted his words. "It's okay. I was about to join you on the floor when Neville showed up and saved us."

Neville, at that point, was looking out the window as if searching for the Dementor. He knew that his Patronus had already dissipated, and he was concerned the foul creature might return. At the sound of his name, he turned back to his friends with a bashful smile. "We're all just lucky that Lockhart was crazy enough to make my try to learn that spell! Otherwise ..."

The boy froze suddenly, the smile draining from his face to be replaced with a glare. Harry looked at his strange expression and then followed the direction of his attention. It was focused on Theo, who had just stepped out of the compartment (looking every bit as pale as Jim and Harry) to instantly catch Neville's attention... and his ire.

"Right then," Neville said in a low voice. "Obviously, everyone's okay. So I'm going back to my seat. I suggest you all do the same before a prefect catches you standing out in the corridor where you might get eaten by a Dementor or something." And with that, he turned on his heels and stalked back the way he came without another word.

By this point, other students were stepping out of their own compartments. While several younger children seemed cold and shaken, no one seemed as deeply affected as Jim and, to a lesser extent, Harry. Hermione insisted that they both eat several chocolate bars each (and then recommended that they brush their teeth extra hard after dinner) before Blaise practically dragged her back to their own car. For his part, Harry thought it best to return with them and do some damage control on Neville. But before he could, Jim grabbed him by the arm and leaned in close.

"Did ... did you hear a woman screaming?" he whispered anxiously.

Harry hesitated before finally nodding yes. "Faintly though. My shields blocked out a lot of it and, well, whatever that memory is of, I have more recent ones that are a lot worse for a Dementor to play around with." He squeezed his brother's shoulder. "But whatever it was, it's over now. It's just some sort of Dementor nastiness. Try not to let it worry you."

Jim nodded back and then returned to his own compartment where Ron and the Quidditch team were waiting. He asked if anyone would mind if he took Steve out of his terrarium. No one objected, and he spent the rest of the trip in virtual silence as he gently rubbed the kingsnake's head while staring pensively out the window as the Scottish highlands rolled by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1: Some readers pointed out after the last chapter that Draco is canonically born in June. Canon, in this instance, refers to a single Pottermore article, and I've already said that this story is not Pottermore-compliant. I needed Draco to be born in early 1980 so that Theo could be born in time to be in Harry's class, and so he was.
> 
> Similarly, I am ignoring everything JKR wrote on Pottermore about Umbridge because it's all completely unworkable. Rowling stops just short of declaring Umbridge to have been "born evil," and Tom Riddle is a much more sympathetic character. I honestly want to know what that mysterious "instructor" upon whom canon-Umbridge is based did to Rowling to engender such absolute loathing. If you haven't noticed already, be aware that POS-Umbridge is a rather different character than the canon version.
> 
> AN2: "Exit, pursued by a bear" is from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. It is generally considered to be the most famous stage instruction in the history of theater.


	15. Feasts, Electives (pt 1)

_**1 September 1993  
Hogwarts** _

Thankfully, the rest of the journey to Hogwarts was without incident, and Harry and his friends soon made their way to the castle. Once inside, as the other students were being ushered into the Great Hall, Harry told Blaise that he needed to go to the loo and to save him a seat. The other boy looked at him quizzically as if there were some imperceptible subtext he wasn't getting. Finally, he shrugged and nodded before heading inside while Harry walked to the nearest boy's restroom where he quickly checked to make sure no one else was present. Then, he hesitated as if somewhat embarrassed by what he was about to do before speaking out with a firm voice.

"Ahem! May I please speak with the house elf known as Tweak?" he said loudly. Nothing happened for several seconds, and accustomed as he was to Dobby's immediate arrival upon summoning, Harry assumed that the Slytherin house elf would not answer his call. But then to his surprise, there was a soft pop heralding the arrival of Tweak, a surprisingly serious-looking elf dressed in an apron covered in flour and who looked decidedly vexed at being summoned away from the feast preparations to answer a student's call.

"Begging the young master's pardon," Tweak said in a tone of voice that was firm, bordering on cold, "but house elveses are not to be answering calls from students. And particularly not during preparations for the Great Feast. Tweak has twenty shepherd's pies that have to come out of the oven very soon."

"Um, sorry, Tweak," Harry said with some embarrassment. "But Hoskins at Longbottom Manor said I could perhaps talk to you. As did some former Slytherin students you may recall. You see, I need a favor."

Tweak crooked an eyebrow in a manner that conveyed far more dubiousness than Harry had ever seen on a house elf's face before.

* * *

_**Meanwhile at the Ministry of Magic ...** _

There was a hard knock on the door to the Senior Undersecretary's office, which caused Dolores's head to jerk up suddenly. Swiftly, she pulled her wand and a small compact mirror out of her handbag, and with a quick spell, she fixed her runny mascara and restored her makeup to normalcy.

"Enter," she said somewhat shakily.

The door opened, and she fought back a grimace. It was James Potter, perhaps the last person she wanted to see this evening.

"Forgive the intrusion, Madam Umbridge," he said brusquely. "Minister Fudge has left to consult with the Muggle PM, and both his assistant and yours have gone for the day. I figured I might as well give a report on that debacle with the Hogwarts Express to someone and you're the only one still here."

"Of course, Chief Potter," she said with a sniff. "Do come in."

Potter entered the office and took a chair but then paused as he studied the woman before him. He wasn't sure but he suspected Umbridge had been crying.

"Madam Umbridge? Is ... is everything alright?" he asked hesitantly.

She chuckled and smiled at him wanly. "I think you know the answer to that, Chief Potter. You're the one here to deliver to me a report on my mistakes."

" _Your_  mistakes?" he asked in confusion.

"Yes. I was, after all, the one who came up with the brilliant idea to manipulate the dementors by stationing them near Hogwarts, which apparently has had the effect of placing the entire student body in danger before they could even get through the front doors." James started to respond, but she continued before he could. "I want you to know, Lord Potter, that I have already tendered my resignation to Minister Fudge, but he has refused to accept it. His belief is that since no one on the train was actually harmed by the rogue dementor, it would be best to minimize the incident rather than undermine confidence in the government. Nevertheless ..."

"Dolores," James interrupted firmly. "Stop. This wasn't your fault. I wasn't happy with the dementor situation – no one is – but you and Cornelius made the best decision you could." He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. He had not been prepared for the woman's reaction.

"And honestly, I don't think you're nearly to blame for what nearly happened as I am," he added almost dejectedly.

"You, Lord Potter?" Dolores said with surprise.

"Me. After all, I am Chief Auror. I was the one who decided that we needed a security presence at Platform 9 3/4. But like a complacent idiot, it never occurred to me to have an auror or two actually ride the Express to Hogsmeade just in case something happened. And please, call me James."

She nodded. "Very well ... James." She reached over and took his report. "I'll review this before I leave tonight and owl a copy to the Minister. But do we at least know what happened to cause the dementor to go rogue?"

James nodded. "Portkey malfunction, apparently. The two aurors assigned to the dementor activated their portkeys according to standard procedure to deliver it to the Forbidden Forest to join its fellow abominations. But something went wrong. Both of them were transported but the dementor got left behind on Platform 9 3/4! To be honest, we were kind of lucky that it decided to follow the train. It could have easily passed through the barrier to the Muggle part of King's Cross and Merlin knows how many it could have Kissed before anyone even knew what was happening."

Umbridge frowned. "But instead it flew halfway to Scotland and boarded the train ... apparently just to menace your sons?"

"So it seems. And yes, I find that detail as disturbing as you do."

Dolores shuddered.

* * *

_**Back at Hogwarts...** _

The Sorting had gone without incident. " _Well, almost without incident_ ," Harry thought to himself as he contemplated two new additions to Slytherin House. He had not been surprised to see both the Carrow sisters Sorted into Slytherin. He was intrigued but not overly concerned when he glanced over towards Cassius Warrington, the only other current student affiliated with House Selwyn and noticed that the boy seemed pale and nervous as he watched his cousins' Sortings. The surprise came when he happened to glance over at the Gryffindor table on the far side of the room and noticed Luna Lovegood looking back and forth between the Carrows with her hand over her mouth and her expression depicting what looked like revulsion. He made a mental note to inquire about that as soon as possible.

After the Carrows were seated, the rest of the Sorting went as expected, and so Harry spent the rest of his time catching up with friends. Blaise sat on one side of him, and Eighth Year Marcus Flint sat on the other in the position usually reserved for Theo. As for Mr. No-Name himself, the outcast was presently sitting alone at the end of the long table closest to the teachers with several empty seats separating him from the rest of his house. Harry had claimed a seat in the exact middle of the Slytherin table, with his friends, allies, and the majority of the Quidditch team clustered around him. Conveniently, all the Slytherins who Harry privately referred to as "Junior Death Eaters" sat together at the end farthest from the teachers.

After the Sorting's conclusion, Dumbledore rose and led a round of applause for the new First Years. "And now, I have a few announcements, one of which is quite serious, so I will break with tradition and present it first before you all become befuddled by our excellent feast ..."

He cleared his throat and continued. "As you are all no doubt no well aware after the incident which took place on the Hogwart's Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry business." For a change, his eyes weren't twinkling at all. From what Harry had divined, the Headmaster was not at all happy about the dementors' presence but apparently was given no choice in the matter.

"They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds, with most of their number floating above the Forbidden Forest. And while they are with us, I must make it plain that no one is to leave school without permission. Dementors cannot be fooled by tricks or disguises – or even Invisibility Cloaks." He added the last bit nonchalantly, but everyone at the Gryffindor table immediately turned to look at Jim Potter who did his best to look innocent.

"It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. Furthermore, in light of developments from this past term, the school has revised its curriculum as pertains to the Patronus Charm, the only Charm capable of repelling dementors. The Patronus Charm will henceforth be part of the curriculum for all NEWT level DADA students, and special evening classes will be offered for younger students who wish to attempt to master this admittedly difficult Charm. These classes will be under the auspices of the DADA instructor and his teaching assistant, Mr. Marcus Flint, who has deigned to return to Hogwarts this year to aid us with this special project." At that, Harry led a round of applause for the embarrassed Marcus that was joined by the entire Slytherin table followed by the rest of the student body.

"And since I have mentioned the DADA instructor, allow me to move on to some more pleasant announcements. This year, we have three new members of the Hogwarts staff to introduce. First, consenting to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is the former Chief of the British Auror Corps, Professor Rufus Scrimgeour." The other man rose and nodded in response to the warm applause he received.

"As to our second new appointment," Dumbledore continued. "Well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties."

Everyone clapped at that as well, though there were some looks of confusion among students who hadn't bothered to inquire as to who had assigned them the Monster Book of Monsters without instructions on how to open it without getting bitten. Harry, being far more astute than the typical student, had asked Snape during one of the man's visits to Longbottom Manor. Kettleburn apparently had chosen retirement because he had felt embarrassed by his failure to identify "Slytherin's Monster" as a basilisk from the few clues available and even more embarrassed when he had actually been the first to fall victim to the creature when it attacked the teacher's lounge during the prior term. His announcement had caught Dumbledore by surprise, and the Headmaster had pulled a lot of strings to get Hagrid a temporary teaching certificate rather than be forced to accept whoever the Ministry decided to impose on the school. Privately, Snape was unhappy about the appointment but also believed that it was just temporary and that Dumbledore was stalling until Wilhemina Grubbly-Plank, the current CoMC instructor at Beauxbatons and a Hogwarts graduate, finished her current teaching contract and could take over for Hagrid. Snape also advised Harry that while Hagrid was highly knowledgeable about magical creatures, he himself was big, strong, practically bulletproof, and immune to poisons, which meant he would likely have no appreciation for how fragile his students would be in the face of Class XXX or higher creatures.

"And finally," Dumbledore continued, "as most of you may know, our former caretaker, Mr. Filch has ... moved on for other job opportunities." At that, the Headmaster was interrupted by the loudest applause thus far. "Yes, yes. I share your fondness for Mr. Filch and your delight that he has found happiness elsewhere. But now, I would like to introduce you all to his replacement, Mr. Malachi Sturgeon!"

At the far end of the staff table, a man who Harry had not noticed before rose. He was dressed in shabby clothes and holding a cat that looked even uglier and more bad-tempered than Mrs. Norris had. He had shaggy light-brown hair and a short beard, and he practically sneered as he surveyed the student body, perhaps in response to the applause which was far more tepid than Hagrid had received. Or perhaps that was just the man's nature. Harry had no idea if Malachi Sturgeon was related to Filch, but in terms of personality, they seemed eerily similar.

"Now finally, before we all dig in, let me say a few final words: Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, Tweak!" With a flash, the usual cornucopia of foodstuffs appeared on the tables, and the students dove in. Harry thought for a second and then barked out an amused laugh.

"What's so funny?" Daphne asked. "Dumbledore has made that exact same quip for the last three years."

"More like the last eight, at least," Marcus added as he helped himself to some boiled potatoes.

"Yeah," said Harry as he glanced towards the Headmaster. "But this is the first year I actually got the joke."

He didn't explain any further, but privately, Harry wondered if he was the only current student who knew that Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, and Tweak were actually the names of the four Hogwarts house elves assigned to supervise the specific needs of the four Hogwarts houses, and that Dumbledore's little joke was actually their cue to convey the food the elves had prepared to the Great Hall. And with a smile, he also wondered how Jim, Ron, Neville and Hermione would react to knowing that the chief Gryffindor house elf was called Nitwit.

* * *

After the Feast, the students made their way to their dorms. Once inside the dungeon, all the Slytherins waited patiently for Snape to deliver his opening remarks for the year. Unsurprisingly in light of recent events, they were somewhat different than normal.

"As you all no doubt realize," he said after getting the initial pleasantries out of the way, "one of our Slytherins now suffers from ... an unusual condition, one which will cause many of you to develop a psychically imposed dislike for him. One so powerful that you may feel the need to lash out at him publicly." At that, a great many of the Slytherin students turned to look at Theo who was standing in the back corner of the room by himself. Many of the looks seemed quite hostile, but if Theo felt intimidated, it did not show in the slightest. For their part, neither Harry nor Blaise looked in his direction but instead remained focused on their Head of House.

" _However_ , the Headmaster has made it clear that no allowances will be made for those who violate the school's policies on bullying and hexing fellow students simply because of the unnatural origin of your feelings. Accordingly, whatever personal animus you may discover for the student in question,  _you will not_  take any actions towards him that will result in any loss of House points or any embarrassment to Slytherin house. Shun him, if you must, but any overt violence or mistreatment directed towards him that is brought to my attention will also earn my personal ire. If such should happen and you find yourself in detention with me, expect to be treated as I would treat ... well, let's just say as I would treat the typical  _Gryffindor_  sent to me for punishment."

At that, a surprising number of students visibly shuddered. Snape completed his remarks and then the Slytherins were sent off to their dorms. The five Third Year boys made their way in silence down the twisting corridors that led to their rooms, and as the school had announced during the summer, they each now had a separate room with their names printed on their respective doors. Theo's room was at one end with Crabbe and Goyle's rooms at the opposite end and Harry's room in the middle. Theo entered his private room, idly wondering what wards he could put on it to keep interlopers from breaking in. Once inside, he flopped onto his bed and exhaled. So far, the first day had gone better than he'd expected, but it looked like it was going to be a long year. He had actually written to Harry, Blaise, and his other Slytherin friends, instructing them to avoid him until they knew the lay of the land, and he'd been pleased to have made some new friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff who seemed interested in protecting him when he was outside of the dungeon. But in the dungeon, he was isolated and vulnerable, and he still didn't know what could be done about it.

Suddenly, his gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a creaking sound coming from his right. Out of reflex, he pulled his wand and pointed in that direction. To his surprise, a part of the wall opened inwards like a door, and then Harry Potter and Blaise Zabini stepped through, the latter carrying a small cardboard box.

"What the ...? Harry! Blaise!" Theo jumped up in surprise, as Harry stepped forward with a grin and pulled him into a hug. Blaise was less emotive, but he still shook Theo's hand warmly.

"So, I'm not even going to guess. How in Merlin's name did you get a secret passage into my room installed?" the boy asked.

Harry gave a self-satisfied smile. "Nothing to it. I just asked a house elf  _very nicely_ , and he installed it. Apparently, it's basically nothing for a house elf high up enough in their hierarchy to rearrange the architecture of certain parts of the castle. Tweak had already been given authority by Dumbledore to reconfigure the dungeons to give us separate rooms, and it was no problem for him to make a few additional modifications so that we can come and go with some discretion."

"Tweak?" Theo asked in amazement. "And what other  _modifications_?"

Harry didn't answer. Instead, with a smug expression, he walked around Theo's bed to the opposite wall and pulled on a sconce. A second hidden door opened up leading to a dark corridor.

"Right," Harry said. "This way.  _ **LUMOS!**_ " Without further explanation, he led his two friends down a dark winding corridor which eventually ended in another door that opened onto the end of Prefect's Row, right next to the door to the Prince's Lair.

"I figured maybe we were placing too much strain on the Lair's Notice-Me-Not defenses. Last year, Miranda Bonnevie figured out that we were spending a lot of time down this way, even if she never could imagine there was a secret room down here. This way, we can come and go as we please without attracting any attention."

"Particularly since you don't know yet if Titus Mitchell and Serena Harper will be as eager to join your little cabal as Marcus and Missy were," Blaise added.

Harry frowned. "Yeah, there is that. I feel good about Serena. She technically owes me for her being Prefect. Titus is another matter. But that's something to worry about later." With that, Harry turned to the Hydra Throne and hissed out an affectionate greeting. The nine snake-heads each hissed their replies, some friendlier than others. Meanwhile, Blaise set his box down on the table and removed two small objects which he placed on the floor against the wall. After two quick Finites, they instantly grew into a Wizarding Wireless and an enchanted mini-fridge which Blaise then opened to retrieve three ice-cold butterbeers.

"Okay then," Harry said as he popped the top off of his butterbeer before sitting down opposite his two friends. "Now lets brainstorm on how we beat this Ultimate Sanction rubbish."

* * *

Much later, the three boys returned to their respective rooms. It was nearly midnight, and Harry was ready for bed when he heard a soft chime coming from his trunk. He shook his head, annoyed at his forgetfulness. He'd promised to check in as soon as he was settled. He opened the trunk, and from a small compartment, he removed a handheld silver mirror. He tapped it three times and the chiming stopped. Then, the mirror's surface rippled and changed to replace Harry's reflection with the image of Regulus Black.

"Hey, Regulus," Harry said. "I'm sorry I forgot to check in. It's been a long day."

"That's alright, Harry. Sirius has already fallen asleep, but do please call him in the morning or he'll whine about it all day."

"Sure thing. Also, your idea worked like a charm. Tweak remembered both you and Mr. Malfoy, and has agreed to do me some minor favors on your behalf, at least until I become Prince myself. There's now a secret passage that leads to the Lair."

"Good," Regulus said. "I wasn't entirely sure that would work. Neither Lucius nor I needed such innovations. We were already prefects when we each became Prince so getting to the Lair discreetly wasn't an issue. We both just abused our authority over Tweak to get free snacks delivered to the Lair." He paused. "I haven't mentioned this to Sirius, but what's this I've heard about a dementor on the Hogwarts Express."

Harry laid back on the bed and began his tale.

* * *

_**2 September 1993  
Divination Class** _

To Hermione Granger's surprise, Divination was one of the more popular electives – so much so that it was one of the few electives that actually had separate classes for each of the four Houses, as opposed to the far more demanding Ancient Runes class which was so sparsely attended that all four Houses could met as one. From what Blaise had told her, this was because the Divination instructor was incompetent and would accept as an answer to an exam question nearly anything from a student who was, as he put it, "a committed bullshit artist." In other words, it was an easy O.

And so it was that she found herself sharing a stuffy, incense-choked classroom with nearly every Gryffindor Third Year. She and Neville were sharing a small table and seated rather uncomfortably on overstuffed cushions, and the experience reminded her of when her parents had taken her to a particularly bad Moroccan restaurant many years before. Her impression did not improve when Professor Sibyl Trelawney, complete with Coke-bottle glasses and a voluminous shawl that made her look like a stock gypsy caricature from a bad Hollywood movie, entered the room.

"Welcome!" she said. "How nice to see you in the physical world at last. My name is Sibyl Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye."

No one said anything, though Ron and Jim looked at one another as if each were daring the other to snicker out loud. Undaunted, Trelawney continued.

"So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can only take you so far in this field ..."

At that, nearly the entire class glanced at Hermione, the notorious Gryffindor bookworm, who sat primly on her cushion, seemingly unfazed by the teacher's remarks.

"Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future. It is a Gift granted to few." Suddenly, she turned on Neville. "You, boy! Is your grandmother well?"

Neville swallowed. "I think so."

Trelawney looked doubtful. "I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, dear." Neville gulped, and Hermione looked back and forth between the two with a frown.

Seemingly oblivious to the effect her ominous words had on Neville, the professor moved on to outlining the curriculum, stopping only briefly to give Parvati Patil an enigmatic warning about a red-haired man. She finished with a prediction of a nasty bout of flu that would be coming in February, followed by a warning that "around Easter, one of our number will leave use forever." Then, she began the day's class on reading tea leaves before asking Lavender Brown to fetch her a large tea pot from a shelf.

"Incidentally, that thing you are dreading – it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October."

Lavender trembled, and Hermione's frown deepened into a scowl. Trelawney gave a brief overview of how to properly read tea leaves according to  _Unfogging the Future_  before directing the students to each take teacups for themselves. "Oh, and dear," she said to Neville as he rose to his feet, "after you've broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue-patterned ones? I'm rather attached to the pink."

Somewhat befuddled by her comment, Neville headed over to the shelf containing the tea cups to be used in the day's lesson, with Hermione following close behind. Meanwhile, Trelawney went to a corner to retrieve a broom and dustpan only to freeze in surprise on her way back. As she had predicted, Neville did indeed knock a teacup off the shelf ... only for it to practically fall into Hermione's hand before she smoothly replaced it on the shelf and then selected a cup of her own.

"Whew!" said Neville. "Thanks, Hermione. That would have been embarrassing."

As the two made their way back to their seats, Trelawney stared at them both while still holding the unneeded broom and dustpan. For several seconds, a nervous silence descended over the room as the professor stared practically slackjawed. Finally, Hermione coughed delicately.

"Is there ... a problem, Professor Trelawney?" she asked cautiously.

"You caught the cup before it fell," Trelawney said as if Hermione had performed some heretofore impossible feat of magic. "How?"

Hermione blinked a few times at the question. "Um, well, you did just say that Neville would break a teacup. I assumed you meant that as a prophecy, so I paid attention in case he did knock something over, and luckily, I was standing next to him and could catch it in time." Trelawney continued to stare. "Was that ... wrong, Professor?"

Trelawney's face crumpled as if she were suddenly on the verge of tears. "Oh, my child. My wonderful child. Please forgive me. When you first came in, I perceived very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future. Yet now, I realize that your Inner Eye is much more perspicacious than I had realized."

"It is?" Hermione asked somewhat dubiously.

"Most definitely, my dear. Indeed, you may well have the markings of a truly gifted seer!"

"I may?" Hermione asked even more dubiously.

"Oh yes, most definitely!" Trelawney turned to address the whole class. "All of you, pay close attention to this gifted young prophetess! I believe we shall all see great things from her."

And indeed, everyone in the classroom focused their attention on Hermione Granger, Seer, who blushed rather profusely at all the attention. When Trelawney moved away to resume her lesson, Hermione leaned over towards Neville who was regarding her with a mild awe.

"I think if I had it to do over again," she whispered. "I'd have just let the cup hit the floor."

Soon after, however, the excitement over Hermione the Seer was eclipsed by a new controversy, as the leaves in Jim Potter's teacup appeared to show both a raven and a rat, which Professor Trelawney identified as omens of gloom, despondency, treachery, failure and death. Indeed, she was so overcome by the dire portents she saw in Jim's cup that she ended class after just twenty minutes, and a grim and frightened mood settled over most of the Gryffindors and especially Jim (but not Hermione who insisted that she didn't see either a raven or a rat in the tea leaves but instead just two indistinct smudges). Indeed, the pall over the class did not lift until the start of their first Transfiguration lesson, at which point Professor McGonagall bluntly told the class that Trelawney had predicted a student's death every year she'd been employed at the school and so far none of those predictions had come true. On the bright side, if Jim happened to die at any point, he would be excused from that day's homework assignment.

* * *

_**Care of Magical Creatures** _

Soon, Hermione's status as Sybil Trelawney's new  _protégé_  was all over the school, with several students asking her to make predictions which she flatly refused to do. Not even for Lavender Brown who was in terror over the prospect of "that thing" she was dreading happening in only six weeks time, even though the girl couldn't actually identify  _anything_  that she was actually "dreading" at the moment. Finally, Hermione ordered Lavender to sit down at lunch and make a list of all the things she was worried about and they'd go over it in their dorm room later that night. Later that afternoon, she finally had a class with Harry and Blaise, both of whom were bemused by her new reputation. As she neared the muddy paddock where their first CoMC class was to be held, she could hear Jim, Ron and Neville discussing their Divination class with Harry and Blaise.

"Good afternoon, Seeress Granger," Blaise called out mockingly. "Any predictions about what will happen in our first Care of Magical Creatures class under our new and potentially hazardous professor?"

"No," she said irritably. "Only a prediction about what will happen to  _you_  if you keep calling me Seeress Granger."

All the boys laughed. "Seriously, though," said Harry. "What happened?"

The girl shrugged. "Professor Trelawney made some sort of vague prediction about Neville breaking a teacup. I happened to be standing next to him when he knocked one off a shelf, and I caught it. Which apparently is enough to make me the new Oracle of Delphi."

"Come on, Hermione," said Neville. "It was pretty awesome how you caught that cup and just put it back on the shelf as if it were nothing."

"It  _was_  nothing," she said with a huff. "Neville, you learning the Patronus Charm by the age of twelve is awesome. Me catching a cup before it hit the floor after someone had  _just told_  me it might get knocked of? Is  _not_!"

Their discussion was cut short when Hagrid arrived, and after a brief introduction, he asked everyone to open their books.

"How?!" Pansy Parkinson asked in an obnoxious tone as she brandished her copy of  _The Monster Book of Monsters_  which was bound up with a thick leather belt. Even still, it growled angrily through its bindings.

"Did yeh not figger out how to open yer book?" Hagrid asked in surprise. "Ye gots to rub the spine!"

"Well how were we supposed to know that!" Pansy said furiously only to look around in shock as she realized that every other student present either already had their books open or were otherwise still in the process of rubbing the spines of their books to calm them. Even Crabbe and Goyle had seemingly solved the problem.

"Hmm. Looks ter me like ever'one else had no problems with 'em. One point from Slytherin fer bein' unprepared."

"To be fair, Mr. Hagrid," said Lavender Brown. "I only know how to open my book because Hermione sent me a letter telling me how." There was mumbled agreement from the entire class who all sheepishly admitted that the young Muggleborn had sent each of them an owl to let them know how to open their CoMC books. For her part, Hermione claimed that she'd been stumped herself until she sent an owl to the publisher, and she forwarded the proper instructions to the others. Even Crabbe and Goyle had gotten a letter from her as they both sheepishly admitted.

"Well why didn't you send a letter to  _me_?!" Parkinson whined.

"I don't know, Parkinson," Hermione replied loftily. "Perhaps because in our first two years at school, you and I haven't had more than four conversations, and none at all in which you didn't insult my parentage with some vulgarity."

Pansy's mouth opened but nothing came out. "Ack!" she finally said.

With the issue of how to open the textbooks resolved, Hagrid proceeded into the lesson which, to the amazement of the class, was about hippogriffs. All of the students seemed both awestruck and terrified by the herd of magnificent winged beasts that the half-giant escorted out of the woods. He then gave a brief but thorough (and surprisingly erudite, for Hagrid anyway) lecture on the creatures before explaining how to safely approach one. In particular, it was vitally important to be "polite" and "respectful" because hippogriffs could sense disrespect and even become violent in response to insults despite not being able to truly understand human speech.

Most of the class paid rapt attention, but Pansy Parkinson seemed to be ignoring Hagrid completely in favor of angrily whispering to Crabbe and Goyle, both of whom were trying to ignore her. Apparently, she was still miffed that none of her fellow Slytherins warned her about how to open her textbook.

"Shhh!" Hermione finally hissed at the other girl when her whispers became too loud. In response, Pansy stuck out her tongue, causing Hermione to roll her eyes in exasperation.

"Right then," Hagrid said after completing his lecture and then untying one of the hippogriffs. "Who wants to go first? We'll start with Buckbeak here." Sensibly, most of the class took a step back. All except Jim Potter, who looked around in surprise and confusion as he realized he was now at the front of the group by himself.

"Oh what the heck," he said amiably. "I'll do it. Just nobody tell my Mum." And with that, the Boy-Who-Lived strode forward confidently while trying to ignore the whispers behind him about that morning's "death omens."

"Remember, Jim," Harry called out. "Be polite and respectful. You know, sort of the opposite of how you normally act."

Jim snickered at that, but once he drew near the proud hippogriff, his good cheer faded about and he swallowed nervously. Fortunately for him, he had paid close attention to the lecture and continued to listen carefully to Hagrid's every instruction. He bowed before the hippogriff respectfully, and after one long tense moment, Buckbeak bowed back to him. Soon after, a pleased Hagrid lifted Jim off the ground and planted him on Buckbeak's back, and to the boy's surprise and delight, the hippogriff took off and carried him on a quick flight around the area.

"Dammit," Harry muttered sourly. "Now I'll  _have_  to do the same thing just to maintain social parity with Jim."

"Come on, Harry," said Ron. "Why wouldn't you want to fly a hippogriff now that you know it's safe?"

Harry snorted. "Because there's a difference between seeing my brother do something and ' _knowing it's safe._ ' We both know my sense of self-preservation is much more highly developed than his."

As Jim came in for a landing, Pansy snorted contemptuously. "Honestly, there's obviously nothing to it. If  _he_  can get one of those smelly beasts to do his bidding,  _anyone_  can!"

"Did you even listen to a  _single word_  Professor Hagrid said about how to handle a hippogriff?" Hermione asked in an irritated voice.

"Hmmf! If he's a  _professor_ , I'm Circe reborn!" the Pureblood spat hatefully. "And anyway, no one asked  _you_." She didn't say "Mudblood" aloud, but she did mouth it where only Hermione could see before stalking away from the others and towards the hippogriff that Jim had just ridden.

" _It's like arguing with a dining room table!_ " Hermione muttered softly through her gritted teeth. " _A bigoted inbred dining room table!"_

Jim practically ran up to Ron, Harry, and Blaise in excitement while several other students were cautiously making their to the paddock and the other hippogriffs. While he started talking animatedly and answering the other boys' questions, Hermione edged over to them, never taking her eyes off Pansy's departing form.

"So what was it like?" Harry said.

"Um, guys?" Hermione said.

"Ha! Like riding a big smelly broom with no stabilizers, and one that you couldn't grab with your hands without making it mad at you!"

"So like riding a Cleansweep?" Ron asked in apparent seriousness.

"Filthy beast! I'll show them how it's done!" Pansy said to no one.

"Guys?!" Hermione said more urgently.

"I wonder if you can saddle and bridle a hippogriff," Blaise said speculatively.

"And when this class is over, I'm going straight to the Owlery to let Daddy know all about this disgusting halfbreed teacher!" Pansy grumbled loudly to herself.

"Harry?! Blaise?!" Hermione said with very great urgency.

"Just a second, Hermione," Harry answered without looking at her. "From the way Hagrid talked, I wouldn't think they would tolerate a saddle."

"Yeah," Jim added. "Besides, I don't see how a horse's bridle would work on an animal with a beak."

"Jim?! Ron?!" Hermione said almost frantically as Pansy strode up to Buckbeak.

"After all, if Jim Potter could do it, any idiot could! Isn't that right,  _you big stupid brute_!"

"RAAAAAAWCK!"

"AAAAAHH!"

" _ **PROTEGO!**_ "

With that, everyone finally noticed what was going on as a brilliant shield materialized between Pansy Parkinson and the furious Buckbeak just a second before his mighty talons could strike the girl. Surprised by the magical barrier, Buckbeak jumped back even as Parkinson fell backwards to the ground. Instantly, Hermione released her shield and cast another spell. " _ **ACCIO STUPID GIRL!**_ "

In response, Parkinson slid through almost thirty feet of muddy soil and hippogriff droppings before coming to a stop at Hermione's feet. Meanwhile, Hagrid ran forward and grappled Buckbeak around the neck before it could pursue the girl.

"What is  _wrong_ with you?!" Hermione exclaimed in a fury. "Hagrid  _just said_  you have to be polite with a hippogriff or it might attack! Are you stupid, suicidal or both?!"

"How  _dare_ you talk to me that way, you filthy ...!" Pansy began only to freeze at the sight of Hermione's wand pointed right between her eyes.

"Do  _not_  use that word around me, Pansy Parkinson. Not after I just saved your miserable hide from getting ripped apart by a hippogriff due to your own blazing stupidity!"

"Ere now," Hagrid called out. "What happened over 'er?" He had just gotten Buckbeak calmed down and was heading over to where Hermione and Pansy were in a stand-off. Soon, other children were gathering around as well. To her surprise, Pansy didn't seem to have much backup. Trying to salvage her wounded pride, she turned on Hagrid angrily.

"What happened, ' _Professor_ ,' is that your wretched hippogriff, that we should have never been exposed to as Third Years, nearly  _killed me_!"

"No," Hermione interrupted coolly. "What happened is that this idiot marched up to Buckbeak and called it ' _a big stupid brute_ ' and then was surprised when it attacked her because she completely ignored the lecture at the start of class!"

"Ye called a hippogriff a big stupid brute!" Hagrid bellowed. "Ye'r lucky you tweren't torn limb from limb!"

"Hah! So you admit it!" Pansy exclaimed victoriously. "I could have been  _killed_  because of your incompetence!"

"But you weren't, though," Harry said in a speculative tone. "Because Hermione saved your life."

"How did you get a shield spell up so fast?" Parvati asked in a somewhat awestruck tone.

Hermione waved off the question. "It was nothing. I realized at once what was about to happen and was ready for it."

Lavender gasped. "Ah! I knew it! You  _are_  a Seer. You foresaw Pansy getting killed and saved her! Just like Neville's cup!"

"What?!" Hermione did a double-take. "No. No, no, no.  _No!_  I didn't foresee anything. I just observed a rude obnoxious girl striding up to an animal that attacks people who insult it and realized what would happen. That's not divination. It's just ... common sense!"

"Nevertheless," Harry said. "You did save Pansy's life, didn't you?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione shrugged. "She might have just been hurt or something. I'm sure Madam Pomfrey could have patched her up with no problem."

"Don't you dare try to minimize the threat to my life!" Pansy shouted before turning back to Hagrid. "Your beast nearly  _killed_  me!"

"Indeed," Harry continued with a smile. "Was anyone else paying attention to Pansy? Did anyone else even have a wand out?"

The answer to both questions seemed to be 'no.' Suddenly, Blaise grinned as he figured out what Harry had already realized. "Oh, Harry. Please tell me you're thinking what I'm thinking!"

"What?" Pansy said in a low suspicious voice. "What are you thinking?"

Harry turned to her with a slightly evil smile. "I'm thinking, Pansy Parkinson, that you have just declared in front of witnesses that you would have died just now had you not been saved by Hermione Granger, who was the only one who was in a position to save you. I'm thinking that as a result, Pansy, you owe Hermione a life debt."

"WHAT?!" Pansy and Hermione exclaimed in unison. Hermione turned back angrily at the other girl only to watch in amazement as Pansy fainted dead away.

Hermione gave a sigh of deep frustration. "First Neville's cup. Now this. It's like I'm being punished for doing good deeds."

"A valuable and important realization, Granger," said Blaise with a grin. "Finally, you're starting to think like a Slytherin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1: Parts of Dumbledore's speech, Trelawney's introduction and Hagrid's first class were taken from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Pretty much all the bits that sound familiar.


	16. Feasts, Electives (pt 2)

**CHAPTER 16: Feasts, Electives and Student Organizations (pt 2)  
**

_**2 September 1993  
5:00 p.m.** _

As the Third Year Gryffindors entered the foyer to the castle after their adventure with Hagrid's hippogriffs, they were met by a scowling Malachi Sturgeon and his hideous cat (who apparently went by the name of Mr. Crookshanks), both of whom seemed mortally offended by the amount of mud they were tracking into the building.

"Just look at all this  _filth!_ " the man roared in a fury. "Vandals, the lot of you!" As the various Gryffindors mumbled their apologies, the caretaker shook his head and then pointed at Jim. "You, boy! Come with me!" And with that, Sturgeon turned and stormed off without waiting for Jim's response. The Boy-Who-Lived blinked in confusion before turning to his friends with a shrug and then heading after the caretaker.

Moments later, he followed the man into the cramped office that had previously belonged to Argus Filch. To Jim's surprise, it was even messier than when Filch had occupied it, mainly because a large cabinet that bore the label " _Confiscated and Extremely Dangerous_ " had been cleaned out, its contents spread out across every work surface as if Sturgeon had been searching for some particular bit of contraband.

"Snot-nosed little hellions!" the man snapped as he gently dropped his cat down to the floor before turning back towards Jim with a sneer. "Why back in my day, detentions would have been spent hanging in the dungeons by your thumbs!"

Jim stared at the strange man for a few seconds before speaking. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Sturgeon, sir, but when exactly did you go to Hogwarts if they were still torturing the students? Because Mr. Filch's complaints to the contrary, I'm pretty sure they stopped hanging students by their thumbs quite a long time ago."

Sturgeon's face twisted into a snarl of rage ... before he suddenly lost his composure and burst into laughter. "Yes, alright, I suppose that was a bit over the top. I thought it best to adopt an attitude similar to my predecessor's – the better to make students wish to avoid me so they wouldn't take too much interest in our activities – but honestly, it's a struggle to keep a straight face while doing an Argus Filch impersonation."

Jim blinked in confusion. " _Our_  ... activities?"

The other man tilted his head as if intrigued by Jim's response. "You  _really_  have no idea who I am, do you?"

"I know you're the new caretaker," he said cautiously. "Should I know you from anywhere else?"

"Extraordinary," the man said with some degree of amazement. "Simply extraordinary."

Before Jim could say any more, Sturgeon swiftly reached into the inner pocket of his shabby coat and pulled out a folded sheet of paper which he handed over to the boy. With some hesitation, Jim unfolded the paper and read the words written on it. Then, he looked back and forth between the paper and the man in front of him in confusion before his face finally lit up with recognition and delight.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed with a laugh. The caretaker made a sour face and clucked his tongue at the outburst.

"Language, Jim," chided Remus Lupin.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the Great Hall, Ron had taken a seat next to Hermione, though he had saved a seat on his other side for Jim (and had practically growled at a Firstie who tried to claim it only to back away fearfully).

"I hope Jim's okay with that new caretaker," he said. "Guy's as creepy as Old Filchy but not half as old and worn down."

"I'm sure Jim is perfectly safe with Mr. Sturgeon," Hermione said confidently as she picked up a pitcher of pumpkin juice. But then, she paused for a moment and stared at the pitcher for several seconds intently before putting it back. "On second thought, I think I'll stick with water," she said with a frown.

Ron nodded and handed her a nearby water jug while he thought about how to proceed.

"So," he finally said, "will you be doing your study group thing again this year?"

"Hmm? I'm not sure. If I do, it won't be as intensive as it has the last two years. I've got a very heavy course load."

Ron thought that was an understatement – according to the rumor mill, Hermione Granger was taking  _every_  elective. He had assumed that required some sort of time travel magic until Percy had said that (a) time travel was impossible and (b) both he and Bill had done the same thing as Third Years. It was doable but exhausting, and Percy had described it as being worse than his Fifth Year OWL preparations.

"Well, see, the thing is," Ron stammered nervously, "I was kinda hoping that maybe I could join your group this year."

"I thought you were already in a study group with Jim and Lavender Brown."

"Actually, that stopped last year after that whole Heir of Slytherin rubbish. Lavender's family made her stop talking to Jim. It was ... unpleasant." Ron grimaced. "Also, she kinda got mad at me for asking to copy off her a few times."

Hermione sniffed delicately. "Well, I hope you're not planning to copy off me," she said in a lecturing tone. "The point of an education is to learn to do your own work."

"I know, I know! And I wouldn't do that. I know education is important."

She smiled and shook her head. "Is that why you're taking Divination and Care of Magical Creatures? The two easiest O's that Hogwarts offers?"

"Yes! I mean ... No!" Ron exclaimed with embarrassment. "That is ..." He paused to look around to see if anyone was listening before leaning towards Hermione.

"I want to be a healer," he whispered.

Hermione opened her mouth to respond but then paused in confusion. "I ... you ... What?"

Ron swallowed nervously. "I want to be a healer someday. That means interning with Madam Pomfrey after OWLS and then getting an apprenticeship at St. Mungo's after I graduate. I'm taking easy electives because stuff like Ancient Runes and Arithmancy won't help me with either of those, but I  _absolutely have_  to get O's on my OWLS for Potions, Charms, and Herbology to even have a chance."

Hermione stared at Ron for several seconds almost as if she'd never seen him before. "Ron ... I had no idea." She thought for a moment and then nodded her head. "Alright, I still don't know if I'm working with a study group, but ... if you need extra help, I can tutor you. I'll just find some extra time somewhere." Her expression turned stern. "But no copying off my papers!"

Ron grinned. "Sure thing."

Hermione continued to study Ron for several seconds as if considering options. "I'll tell you what though. In exchange for tutoring, would you be willing to do something for me?"

"Name it."

"Well, you see, I'm starting this club ..."

* * *

"What sort of club?" Neville asked. "I know Hermione's starting a group of some kind..."

"This one's different," Lavender said. "In some ways, quite the opposite."

Oliver Wood jumped in. "Ya see, after that business on the Express platform yesterday, some of us were thinking that the Muggleborns and Halfblood students got bent out of shape over No-Name because they weren't raised in our culture and don't really understand it. So some of us got together and decided that maybe we need a club of our own so that we can teach one another about our various family traditions and stuff like that. That way, maybe we'd be better able to explain how things work in the wizard world to those raised outside it."

"So ... you want to start a Pureblood club?" Neville inquired cautiously. "Isn't there a bad history around that idea?"

"No!" Lavender exclaimed almost offended. "Nothing bigoted or gross like that. This is all just about celebrating our own heritage and shared history and stuff. Nothing ... Death Eatery."

Neville opened his mouth to ask whether "Death Eatery" was actually proper English, but then, over Lavender's shoulder, he happened to notice Theo sitting alone at the Slytherin table. His mouth slapped shut into an annoyed grimace.

"I'll think about it," he finally said.

* * *

_**In the Caretaker's Office...** _

Jim and Remus were having an enjoyable meal to themselves (delivered by house elves), and the boy was still marveling at how Remus had concealed his true identity.

"I just can't believe that the Headmaster hid your real name behind a Fidelius!" he said while looking down once more at the scrap of paper that said  _Malachi Sturgeon is actually the werewolf Remus Lupin_. "I mean, I could see you and everything, but I just couldn't make the connection."

"Honestly, I can hardly believe it myself," Remus replied. "I was, of course, aware of the Fidelius, though I was abroad when your parents used it to make Sirius their Secret Keeper. But I was shocked when Professor Dumbledore explained that he could use it to conceal identities and other secrets. While it's in place and he remains my Secret Keeper, no one will recognize me as Remus Lupin, and no one will guess that Malachi Sturgeon is a werewolf no matter how many times I miss work for the full moon. Which I suspect will make dealing with Professor Snape much easier for us both."

"It's kinda creepy though," Jim said with a shudder. "If you can conceal that sort of information so easily with a Fidelius, a dark wizard could cause all sorts of problems with it."

"True, but the Headmaster assured me that very few wizards could cast a Fidelius at all and only a handful of people in the world could alter it for secrets other than hidden locations. The spell is also limited in that a person can be Secret Keeper for one secret at a time, a person can only have one Secret to be Kept at a time, and the person who cast the spell can only maintain one iteration of it at a time. So I feel relatively confident that we need not fear dark wizards abusing this Charm any time soon."

Jim nodded and changed the subject. "So you've told me – or shown me, I guess – your secret. When are you going to tell Harry? And Ron too, I hope, but I know you wanted to reconnect with Harry."

Remus looked away. "I ... will. But I'd like to get to know him first." He sighed. "Frankly, I'm a bit worried that he might think poorly of me for leaving Britain while he was left with..."

"He won't," Jim interrupted confidently. "He'll understand about what happened. About what Mum and Dad ... well, you know." He looked at Remus cautiously. "Are you planning on telling Mum you're here? I won't be surprised if you're keeping Dad in the dark, but you are working here with my mother after all."

"I haven't decided yet. To be honest, I think it might ... simplify things for now if I kept the number of people who know my secret to a minimum. You, Ron, and eventually Harry. In the meantime, we'll need to set up a schedule of Wu Xi Do lessons for you. And also animagus training if you're still bent on that. And since it will have to be a secret, we'll have to figure out some system for getting you detentions that can be served with me."

Jim laughed. "No fear. I've never had much trouble getting detentions in the past." Then, he glanced over to the empty cabinet against the wall. "So what's with that? Was there something  _Confiscated and Extremely Dangerous_  in particular you were looking for?"

Remus shrugged wistfully. "Just an idle fancy. There was something that I helped make that I was rather proud of that Filch took from your father in 1976. It was foolish to think Filch had actually held onto it all these years. I imagine he destroyed it after we graduated."

"Oh? What was it?"

* * *

_**The Slytherin table in the Great Hall ...** _

While going over some Quidditch plays with Adrian Pucey, Harry happened to glance down towards the "Junior Death Eater" end of the table in time to make eye contact with Gregory Goyle, and the boy quickly mouthed " _can we talk?_ " in an unfortunately obvious manner that Harry hoped no one else noticed. He responded with a discrete nod and then ignored Goyle completely for the rest of dinner. Afterwards, he managed to catch the other boy away from Crabbe and the rest of their circle and pull him into an empty classroom, which Harry promptly sealed off with several privacy spells.

"We really need to work on your subtlety, Greg," Harry finally said.

Goyle ignored the dig. "You promised that if I spied for you, you'd help save Amy from a forced marriage. Have you gotten anywhere?"

"Well, first of all, you haven't actually done much in the way of spying for quite a while since Draco has transferred schools. However, I have promised to do everything I can for Amy, and I will. I have ... plans in place for dealing with that, but I'm not in an position to put them into action right this moment. I was under the impression we had until next summer. Has something changed?"

Greg looked dismayed. "No, at least not about the date. Lord Nott wants to wait until after she turns thirteen next June. I guess he thinks that will make it less ... gross, I suppose, if she's officially a teenager. But he wants to meet her  _next month_. My father said that on Halloween, the day of the first Hogsmeade visit, he'll get permission for her to come even though she's a Second Year. I'm to escort her to the Three Broomsticks so that Nott, Amy and my family can all have lunch together and he and Amy can ... get to know each other."

Goyle shuddered at that, while Harry made a face and once again renewed his personal vow to destroy Tiberius Nott someday.

"So long as it's just lunch, we'll get through it. I'll be in Hogsmeade and stay near the Three Broomsticks. If he tries anything more than a simple lunch date, I'll ... well, I'll think of something. Otherwise, we stick to the original plan."

"Yeah," Goyle said urgently, "but what  _is_  the original plan. You haven't told me  _anything_  about what you're going to do."

"No, Greg, and I don't plan to. I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to trust me."

The other boy was visibly unhappy, but he nodded his acceptance.

* * *

Later, another meeting took place as Harry finally introduced the Seventh Year prefects, Titus Mitchell and Selena Harper, to the Prince's Lair and the books and other items it contained. Also present were Blaise and Theo, the later of whom caused a bit of controversy by his presence. Neither prefect was from a family affected by the Ultimate Sanction – Mitchell was a Half-blood and Harper a Pureblood, but neither of their families had any oath bonds to either the Wizengamot or any of its member families. Still, both of them noted that the clear majority of Slytherins would be affected, and neither of them relished becoming tainted by the Sanction's side effects while on the cusp of graduating. After some discussion, it was agreed that the two prefects would show public disdain for Theo when among other Slytherins but would also punish house members who bullied him because of "strict orders from Snape and Dumbledore."

As Serena and Titus were leaving, Harry spoke up. "I almost forgot. The password to get in and out of the Lair is  _fierce blue puppy_."

The two 7th Years looked at each other in confusion. "What is the significance of that phrase?" Mitchell asked.

"There isn't any. I just picked three random words from the dictionary. But last year, I tried to be clever with the password, and it bit me. So this year, I'm trying to be more sensible about security."

After the prefects' departure, Blaise turned to Harry. "Okay, now that they're gone, we can get to something that we should have talked about before now, but I'd been giving you the chance to be the one to bring it up. What do you know about the Azkaban breakout?"

Harry looked at him blandly. "What makes you think I know  _anything_  about the Azkaban breakout?"

"Well, you haven't been brainstorming with us ever since the breakout occurred trying to figure out who was behind it or what their goal is. Nor have you actually shown any particular concern about it. And your father is Chief Auror and your brother is the Boy-Who-Lived, so I'm sure you know more than anyone outside the government."

Harry made a face. "Speaking purely hypothetically, if I did know anything about it, I couldn't share it with either of you."

"Why?" asked Theo. "Oaths or something?"

"Or something," Harry answered vaguely.

Blaise stared at him aghast. "Oh for the love of ... You're  _involved_! You're actually involved personally in the escape of the worst five Death Eaters in Azkaban!"

" _Technically_ ," thought Harry, " _it was only the worst four._ " Of course, he also knew that Blaise had never credited Harry's suspicion that Sirius Black might be innocent.

"Blaise, Theo," he finally said, "you have both put a lot of trust in me so far. I'm going to ask you to trust me now that there is nothing I can say to you about the Azkaban breakout and so stop asking me questions about the topic."

It was indeed a testament to the two boys' faith in Harry Potter that they grudgingly agreed to his request, though Theo did have one bleak warning.

"But  _speaking purely hypothetically_ , Harry, if you  _did_  have something to do with the breakout, don't ever get caught. Or else people might actually hate you worse than  _me_!"

* * *

Meanwhile, in Gryffindor Tower, Hermione was grudgingly reviewing a list of the seventeen things that Lavender Brown most dreaded. The girl had stopped at seventeen because she honestly couldn't think of any more things she might be dreading, and the seventeenth item was, in fact, " _something I haven't thought of that I won't remember until October 16_ _th_ _when it's too late._ " Reviewing the list, Hermione reviewed each individual dread, asked a few questions for clarification, and then jotted down some notes for things she thought Lavender could perhaps do to prevent anything bad from happening.

A few of them, she simply marked through with a quill. When Lavender asked why, she said "I understand why you might be dreading your OWLS and NEWTS, but even if you do fail them, you won't find out about it for years to come, so that's not something that can happen by the 16th of October," a logical point that Lavender accepted. Finally, Hermione got to the penultimate item – Number 16:  _Binky_.

"And what, pray tell, is a  _Binky_?" Hermione inquired while trying to keep any hint of disdain from her voice.

"Binky is my new pet rabbit. My parents got him for me this summer, but they wouldn't let me bring it to Hogwarts. He's still young and small, and my stupid little brother Elwood keeps taking him out of his hutch to play with him and forgetting to latch it properly when he puts him back. Binky might get out some day and run off or get eaten by an animal."

Hermione stared at the other girl. "And you would describe this possibility as something you ...  _dread_?"

Lavender shrugged. "Maybe, I guess."

The other girl sighed. "Alright then, I assume the Browns have house elves. So write home and ask your parents to order a house elf to keep an extra eye on Binky especially when Elwood is playing with him." And she wrote that instruction on the parchment, along with instructions for avoiding Dementors, gold-digging boys after her inheritance, Dragonpox, acne, and falling off the school's moving stairs. She simply marked through several other "dreads" such as You-Know-Who returning, Grindelwald returning, and Lavender flunking all her exams as things that couldn't possibly be averted or even be likely to happen before the deadline.

"So what do  _you_  think is the most likely danger for Lavender?" Parvati asked. Hermione looked over the list again.

"Honestly, none of them. Professor Trelawney said ' _that thing you are dreading will happen on October 16_ _th_." I think it's a self-fulling prophecy. She created an expectation that something you dread will happen on that day, but the way the prophecy was worded,  _any_  unfortunate thing that happens will technically satisfy it. The thing you  _really_  dread most right now, Lavender, is hearing bad news on October 16th in fulfillment of prophecy, and it really won't matter what it is so long as you choose to view it as dreadful."

The other to girls stared at Hermione in silent amazement. "Wow, Hermione," Lavender said in a hushed voice. "You're so ...  _deep_." Beside her, Parvati nodded her head furiously in agreement.

Hermione shrugged almost helplessly. "... thanks?"

* * *

By midnight, everyone in Slytherin House was in bed and (for the most part) asleep. Alone in his room, Harry Potter wasted five fruitless minutes trying to summon his wand from its spot on his dresser before giving up. In the room next door, Theo No-Name spent a few rather more productive minutes setting up wards on his door to keep out intruders, something that was now a part of his daily routine. And in the room on the other side of Harry's, Blaise Zabini drafted a quick and completely innocuous letter to his mother about the events of his first day back before flipping the parchment over to write a second letter on the backside with invisible ink.

In another part of the dungeon, six First Year girls were sharing a room together. Four of them tossed and turned all night, their dreams troubled by a persistent feeling of terrible unease. The other two, Flora and Hestia Carrow, slept quite well, if in a peculiar manner. For neither girl slept with her eyes closed. Instead, they both lay flat on their backs as if dead to the world, their sightless unblinking eyes staring out into the darkness that surrounded them. They slept, and in their dreams, they made plans.

* * *

_**3 September 1993  
Muggle Studies** _

Professor Lily Potter's Muggle Studies class was during the first period of the day and required students to rise and take breakfast early. Historically, the early time was considered one reason for the class's unpopularity. Other equally valid reasons included widespread anti-Muggle bigotry and also how embarrassingly out-of-date the subject matter had been under the prior instructor (who had finally been dismissed in 1991 after admitting to having no idea what an automobile was). Despite the early start time, Professor Potter was quite pleased with the size of this year's class and also somewhat surprised that it actually included at least two children of former Death Eaters. Neither Harry nor Jim was taking her class, of course. She had informed Jim the previous year that, no, he could not take a class under his own mother just to get an easy A. Harry, on the other hand, had never expressed the slightest interest in Muggle Studies, a fact that she fought to view as completely sensible for a Muggle-raised student, no matter how insistently a voice in the back of her head suggested that it wasn't the class that turned him away but the teacher.

After checking roll, she went around the room, asking various students what they hoped to get out of the class.

Daphne Greengrass said that her family's businesses occasionally required them to interact with Muggles, and his parents expected all their children to be able to do so without drawing attention to themselves.

Ernie MacMillan said much the same.

Susan Bones said that she'd been embarrassed in the past by her ignorance about basic Muggle facts and wanted to learn more about them.

Gregory Goyle grudgingly said that his father was making him take the class. It seems a Muggle had once nearly killed him with "a ruffle" because he didn't know what it was at first. Lily assumed he'd meant "rifle" but let the mistake pass for the moment. It would do no good to embarrass a Pureblood with Goyle's background on the first day, least of all by inquiring under what circumstances Goyle Sr. had been shot at by an armed Muggle.

Hermione Granger, the only Muggleborn in the room other than Lily herself, hesitated before saying simply that she thought it would be fascinating to see what wizards actually thought about Muggles. For a moment, Lily wondered if she detected a hint of bitterness from the girl who so many people had compared to her at the same age, but when she studied Hermione's face, she saw only bland attentiveness.

And so it went, until Lily finally asked Theo No-Name, who was sitting on the back row by himself, and the boy said flatly "because I might end up living among them for the rest of my life," which caused a brief flutter of tension to pass over the room.

The introductions over, Lily began her lecture. "Let's start today with the most obvious question. Miss Bones, can you tell us what exactly a Muggle is?"

Susan swallowed a bit nervously at being picked out first. "Well, I suppose I'd say a Muggle was someone with no magic?"

"Um-hm," Lily replied thoughtfully. "So how does that definition apply to squibs?"

Susan hesitated. "Well ... squibs can't cast spells or work wands, but they do have  _some_  magic."

"True to a point," the teacher said. "A first generation squib can usually brew a basic potion successfully and operate most enchanted objects, though not all of them can. Such abilities are incredibly rare among second-generation squibs and unheard of among anyone in later generations. And yet, a squib is still capable of passing on a magical inheritance and siring a wizarding child, whether directly or generations later. Of course, there is little reliable evidence about how easily a squib of any generation can sire a wizarding child..."

" _In large part because our government has banned such research for centuries,_ " Lily thought to herself, " _but since I don't want to get fired or worse, I'll pass over that_."

"... but there have been documented cases of supposed Muggleborns who have successfully traced their lineage back to a squib who had been born into a wizarding family as much as seven generations before."

Out of the entire class, Hermione was the only one not shocked by the teacher's words, as she had tracked her own genealogy back to a wizarding ancestor just three generations removed (for all the good it did her), but her classmates all looked at one another in surprise. She wondered how many of her Pureblooded classmates would still cling to blood supremacy after a year of this class.

" _Probably most_ , she thought rather cynically. " _I have gotten to know them pretty well, after all._ "

Professor Potter continued. "But we're straying afar from the field of Muggle studies, so let me rephrase the question. Mr. MacMillan, how long do you think Muggles have existed?"

The question obviously confused the young Hufflepuff. "I've ... never really thought about it. I suppose there have always been Muggles."

"You suppose wrong, Mr. MacMillan," Lily said lightly. "There have always been people without magic, whether they were called No-Majs, Mundanes,  _Le Sans-Magie_ , Langweiligmenschen, or any number of other terms, some of which were descriptive while others were meant as insulting. But we have only called them  _Muggles_  since 1692 or so. Can you guess why, Mr. MacMillan?"

Ernie thought for a moment and then his eyes lit up. "The Statute of Secrecy!" he exclaimed.

"Quite so. In 1692, the International Statute of Secrecy went fully into effect. I'm sure you're all aware of what an important law that was and is, but what you may not fully appreciate is that it was far more than an act of multinational legislation. The Statute of Secrecy is a  _magical law_ , a monumental spell of global reach backed by the combined magic of the ICW member countries. It was powered by the raw magical energies of entire nation-states, all funneled into a spell cast cooperatively by over a hundred of the most powerful and skilled witches and wizards of the day. It is quite possibly the most powerful spell ever cast in recorded history. And the power and breadth of that spell cannot be overstated."

"Literally overnight, nearly all of the world's non-magical people simply  _forgot_  that magic and those who could work it ever existed. Please understand: before the Statute's passage,  _everyone_  knew about magic. Every king and queen in Europe had a Court Wizard as part of their retinue and likely dozens of prominent wizard-folk of noble ancestry among their courtiers. In fact, John Dee, the Court Wizard and spymaster of Queen Elizabeth I had so much influence over her government that he is credited with inventing the term " _the British Empire_." Military conflicts across the globe and dating back thousands of years had employed war-wizards alongside mortal soldiers ever since the Dark Lord Sargon of Akkad became the first wizard – and one of the first  _people_  – to forge an empire with himself as ruler. Throughout much of human history, every sizeable village had at least one village healer or wise man or woman who was actually a self-taught wizard or witch who lived among the non-magicals. Jewish and Christian non-magicals all knew the story of the wizard Moses and the magical duels he fought against the wizards of Egypt to win his people's freedom. And then, in the space of a single day, all of the non-magicals simply ...  _forgot all of it._  Legends about magic endured but only as stories. Fairytales and myths that many people knew but almost no one remembered from any personal experience."

Lily's eyes lit up as she warmed to the subject. "And it wasn't just memories. A vast number of Muggle historical records were magically edited or erased to eliminate any credible information about wizard-kind. Statues and paintings of famous wizard-folk were altered so that everyone would forget the real people depicted in them. Some wizards and witches were removed from the historical record outright while others simply had their biographies altered to excise any references to wizardry – Circe, Lao-Tse, Hermes Trisgmegistus, Roger Bacon, St. Patrick, Johann Faustus, Leonardi di Vinci, and innumerable others. Parts of the Holy Bible itself that had previously discussed magic and those who worked it were edited to exclude us, and the same happened with the Torah, the Quran, the Mahabharata, the Code of Hammurabi, Magna Carta, and countless fictional and non-fictional works dating back to before the time of Homer. One of Shakespeare's plays,  _Love's Labours Won_ , was eliminated completely from the Muggle canon because it was a romantic comedy about star-crossed lovers attending Hogwarts together. If you're interested in Elizabethan-era views on magic, there's a surviving copy of that play in the Library."

"And  _that_  is when we started calling them  _Muggles_. The term was derived from a medieval English word –  _mug_. At the time, it meant a foolish person, specifically one who had been deceived by others. And so Muggle came to mean a non-magical person who must be tricked into disbelieving in magic. Please note the word I just used. Not someone who has been tricked or who should be tricked, but someone who  _must_  be tricked. Because as powerful and extraordinary as the Statute of Secrecy is, its power is not inviolate and its reach is not absolute. Individual Muggles  _can_  accept that magic is real if they personally observe its use. And if a sufficiently large number of Muggles ever  _did_  learn that magic existed, it is feared that the Statute itself would collapse and all the hidden evidence of our existence would be laid bare. In which case, the more than 5.5  _billion_  Muggles in this world would instantly realize that an entire global subculture of people who could work real magic had been hiding among them invisibly for centuries. And believe me, the Muggles of 1993 are not the Muggles of 1692. They have arts and powers of their own now, and if a conflict broke out between wizards and Muggles today, there is no guarantee who would win, but either way, the entire world would be the loser."

At that, there was a snicker from one student. "Mr. Goyle? Do you have something to add?"

The boy blushed at being called out. "Sorry, Professor, but how could we lose a war against Muggles no matter how many of them there are? I mean ... they're Muggles!"

Hermione rolled her eyes at that, but she noted that while most of her Pureblooded classmates seemed to disapprove of his crudeness, none of them seemed to disagree with the content of his words. The Professor just smirked.

"And that, Mr. Goyle, is why you are here: to learn about what Muggles are, what they can do, and why they cannot be ignored or dismissed. Tell me, class, has any wizard or witch ever been to the moon?"

Most of the students laughed out loud at the suggestion, though Hermione merely smiled. She alone knew where the teacher was headed.

"That's impossible, Professor," said Ernie MacMillan. "No wizard can apparate outside the terrestrial sphere!"

"Very true, Mr. MacMillan, very true," she said. Then, she turned and waved her wand at a large scrapbook on her desk. The book flipped open, and with another wave, a particular photo was lifted up off the page and enlarged to cover the rear wall. Hermione knew the image well, but it astonished all the other students.

"This," Lily continued as she pointed at the stunning blue orb that took up most of the wall, "is the planet Earth as viewed from the surface of the moon. The gray landscape at the bottom is the lunar surface near the crater known as the Sea of Tranquility." She waved her wand again and another picture rose up to replace the first, one depicting an astronaut on the lunar surface. "This is Neil Armstrong, an American Muggle who was the first person to walk on the Moon in July of 1969. As a nine-year-old child who knew nothing of the wizarding world, I watched television coverage of the Apollo 11 landing, as did untold millions of other Muggles. The suit Armstrong wears is called a space suit, and he had to wear it at all times while on the Moon because there is no air there and he would have died almost instantly without it."

Another wand-wave. "This is a picture of the Saturn V rocket which carried Armstrong and two others more than 225,000 miles above the Earth to reach the Moon. This rocket is about 363 feet tall. Only this small piece at the top contained the three Muggles, while most of the remaining structure was comprised of the rocket assembly. Think of these rockets as large tubes filed with a highly explosive compound that hurled the ship upwards with what can best be described as a carefully controlled detonation of unimaginable force. The entire mission lasted twenty-four days but was years in the making. The project required the work of thousands of Muggles and cost the American Muggle government the equivalent of roughly 35 million galleons in today's currency. And they put forth all that effort and expense for no reason except the spirit of exploration. To do what had never been done before."

At that, Hermione nearly raised her hand to ask a question but thought better of it. As a well-read Muggleborn she knew that there were factors other than "the spirit of exploration" behind the lunar mission – namely, the Space Race and the desire of the Americans to dominate the Soviet Union which had been the first nation to put a man into orbit. But then she realized that the global conflict between the USSR and the West might be a bit much for a class of Purebloods, the most insulated of whom had assumed that Muggles were all illiterate peasants.

" _If nothing else_ ," Hermione thought to herself as she noticed how speechless her classmates were, " _maybe Professor Potter will at least cure them of_ _that_ _illusion_."

* * *

__**Ministry of Magic  
Aurors' Office  
8:45 a.m.**

As he walked past the waiting room outside the Auror Department, James Potter was surprised to see a familiar face, if one not usually seen in this part of the Ministry.

"Peter!" he exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

The solicitor held up a bundle of parchments. "Bookkeeping matters, I'm afraid. I've completed the audit of this years charity proceeds from Jim's birthday party. I need you to sign them so I can get them filed on time. I should have contacted you yesterday, but I got held up and it totally slipped my mind."

James smiled at his best friend. "Not a problem. I don't have any meetings before 10. Come on in."

With that, James led Pettigrew into the Senior Command area of the Aurors' Office, bypassing the usual security checkpoints as they went. Soon, they were in his office, where the Chief Auror (and Trustee of the Jim Potter Charitable Trust) dutifully signed every dotted line pointed out by the solicitor and then stamped them with his Lord's ring. As he did so, Peter made a point of asking innocuous but thoughtful questions, usually every time it looked like James might be tempted to stop and read something.

"So, any movement on the Death Eater investigation?" he asked.

"No. We're still pursuing all leads, but there hasn't been anything other than rumors and speculation since the breakout. We're about ready to shut down all international portkey operations that don't originate out of the Ministry Portkey Office, but it may be closing the gate after the hippogriffs are all gone. Besides, assuming they haven't fled the country already, they could still use an illegal portkey out of Thurso."

"Thurso?" Peter inquired, as if he didn't know the name well.

"It's a small fishing on the northern Scottish coast. It's the only point that lies outside the portkey warning system. Amelia has been saying for years that we ought to do something to close that security hole no matter how much it cost, just like Crouch before her and probably every other DMLE head since the founding of the Ministry."

"Would it really cost that much?"

James sighed. "I'm hardly a warding expert, but apparently it would require adjusting ley lines over an area of roughly 500 square miles at a cost of over 10% of the Ministry's annual budget. Oh, and also take about three years. We're probably just going to assign a permanent auror detail there instead – like we're not short on aurors as it is."

Peter nodded and fought to keep a frown off his face. If aurors were being assigned to Thurso, he might have to alter some of his plans.

"Any news on the escapees?" he asked to change the subject.

"Nothing I can share publicly."

Peter laughed. "Not even to your Seneschal?"

James smiled at his oldest remaining friend. "Sorry. If there's any news to report to the Wizengamot, you'll be the first to hear it." Then, he tilted his head and studied the other man. "Say, do you have any dinner plans? It's been a while since we've just sat and talked. Maybe we could crack a bottle of wine and reminisce about the good old Marauder days before everything went to hell."

Peter considered. "It would have to be an early dinner with not too much wine. I have a prior engagement later that evening."

"Oh?" the other man said with a saucy grin. "What's her name?"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Potter. It's ... a business matter."

"If you say so," Potter said while wriggling his eyebrows suggestively. "The Leaky Cauldron around five? A few beers over Shepherd's Pie?"

"I look forward to it," Peter answered gamely as he shuffled the signed parchments. "But for now, I'm off to wrangle with goblin accountants for the better part of the day." He headed for the door, but James called out before he could leave.

"Peter," he said with sudden hesitation. "Thank you."

"Whatever for?" Pettigrew asked with curiosity.

"For not saying ' _I told you so'_  after Black's escape. As I recall, if you'd had your way, Sirius would have died in an alleyway twelve years ago. You were right about him. All the way back in Sixth Year after The Prank. I should have listened to you then."

Peter stared at James with an emotionless mask. For a brief second, he wondered where they would both be today if James had indeed listened to him all those years ago.

* * *

__**The Gryffindor Common Room  
15 November 1976, 1:00 a.m.  
(14 days after The Prank)**

"I cannot believe this," Peter said bitterly. "I absolutely cannot believe that you're just ... letting it go. Like it was  _nothing_."

"It wasn't nothing, Pete," James replied. "I know it was a big deal. But it's been two weeks, and Sirius has spent every minute of it begging our forgiveness. Remus has already forgiven him. Why can't you?"

"I dunno, Prongs," the boy sneered. "Maybe because I value Remus's life more than he does himself!"

"Come on, Wormy, that's not fair," James replied without noticing the grimace Peter gave at the use of the nickname Padfoot had christened him with. "Sirius really does feel bad. And in the end, no one got hurt."

Peter glared at James only to turn away at his friend's pleading expression.

"He's a violent sadistic bully, James," the boy said in a low angry voice. "You know that, right? Remus and I have outgrown our silly Marauder pranks. You only go after Snivellus and have mostly stopped that. But your precious  _Padfoot_  still hexes every Slytherin who crosses his path, along with any Ravenclaws he deems too arrogant to suit him and every Hufflepuff who travels alone. He's a thug with a wand for all his precious Pureblood breeding."

James looked down, unwilling to deny outright Peter's accusations. "He says he's willing to change. That if we forgive him and let him back in the Marauders, he won't prank anyone else ever again. Come on, Pete. If you think that badly of him, then this is your chance to help him be better. To finally grow up. And besides, you know he wouldn't have done something like that to Snivelly and Moony if it hadn't been for that business with Marlene. You know how that must have affected his judgment. Despite everything, we're all friends, and friends forgive each other."

Peter leaned his head back to rest against the couch and closed his eyes tiredly. "Alright," he finally said. "I'll let it go. I suppose if Moony is willing to forgive him, it would be churlish of me not to as well."

James grinned and clasped Peter on the shoulder. Peter did not smile. James rose then to go and tell Sirius the news that the Marauders were back together. But before he could leave the Common Room, Peter called out.

"I do have one question though – would you have forgiven me that easily?"

James turned back to him and cocked his head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Peter rose and walked up close to the leader of their little club, staring up into the taller boy's eyes with a cool expression. "I mean – If I had played a stupid petty trick on someone I didn't like with the possible result of seeing them either bitten by a werewolf or killed outright and the equally possible result of Walden McNair coming to Hogwarts with a big shiny axe for cutting off Moony's head ... would you have simply forgiven me after barely two weeks?"

James's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Peter! Of ... of course I would," he said unconvincingly.

"No," Peter replied grimly. "No, I'm sorry but I don't believe you. The Marauders are all friends, but only James and Sirius are  _best_  friends. I've known that since we were eleven, but I never expected it to be demonstrated so graphically. I can forgive that as easily as I can forgive what your psychopathic best mate did. But don't expect me to ever forget either of them."

And with that, Peter Pettigrew turned and walked away, leaving James Potter alone. It wasn't the first step that set Pettigrew on the path to his destiny, nor was it the last step.

But it was certainly a big step.

* * *

_**Now ...** _

Peter's blank face suddenly broke out into a cheerful grin. "Honestly, Prongs. I got all the  _I told you so's_  out of my system in 1981. If you want to thank me for anything, do it by putting an end to that miserable traitor who's after my godson."

"It will be a pleasure," James said with a smile. Peter nodded and left the office for Gringotts. He was alone in the elevator and so took the time to review the documents James had signed to make sure they were all in order. When he saw they were, he grinned again, only it was malicious instead of cheerful.

"You are so very welcome, James," he said to himself. " _Mischief managed_  indeed."


	17. Feasts (conclusion)

**CHAPTER 17: Feasts, Electives and Student Organizations (conclusion)**

_**3 September 1993  
Ancient Runes** _

Just before nine o'clock, Harry and Blaise sauntered into the Ancient Runes classroom, and each took a seat on either side of Hermione on the front row. Just in front of them was the teacher's desk, and on it was what looked to be a small painting on an easel covered by a cloth. The teacher herself had not yet arrived.

"How was Muggle Studies?" Harry asked amiably. "Was it worth getting up an hour earlier than we did?"

Hermione smiled. "Yes, actually. It was quite informative."

"Really?!" Blaise inquired dubiously. "What in Merlin's name could anyone teach you about being a Muggle?"

"Well, probably nothing," she answered. "But I learned a great deal about the whys and hows of the Statute of Secrecy that I didn't know before. Also, I found it quite instructive to see how all the Purebloods in my class reacted to finding out about the Muggle space program. I'm looking forward to when Professor Potter introduces the topic of nuclear weapons to them."

Harry snickered at that but then schooled his face into a more dignified expression as Professor Babbling entered through a door in the back of the classroom. He'd spent some time over the summer reading up on one of Hogwarts' younger instructors but had never directly interacted with her before. After his shocking realization about Quirrell and Voldemort in November of 1991, he'd briefly been alarmed when Bathsheba Babbling showed up to breakfast one morning wearing a turban of her own. He quickly relaxed upon realizing that this not a ridiculous turban-like monstrosity like the strange headgear Quirrell had worn to conceal the Dark Pimple, but rather a traditional turban worn to recognize Babbling's ethnic heritage. In short, it was at once exotic and fashionable while also small enough to reassure Harry that the woman had nothing evil growing out of the back of her head.

According to what Harry had learned since, Bathsheba Babbling ( _nee_ Mekonnen) was of Ethiopian descent but had been raised primarily in the wizarding enclave at Timbuktu in what Muggles presently called the Republic of Mali. While Muggle Timbuktu was sparsely populated and impoverished, its magical counterpart was a thriving cosmopolitan settlement about five times the size of Diagon Alley, with a population of well over 7,000 wizards, witches, and squibs living in a bustling town hidden from Muggle eyes by powerful magic.

Although most African wizards and witches attended Uagadou, those from North Africa often had ties to Europe and so frequently went to Beauxbatons for their magical education. The young Bathsheba Mekonnen was one of those who did, graduating with honors in 1981 before embarking on an Ancient Runes mastery. She also met her future husband, David Babbling (from a once-British family that had expatriated to France in the 17th century) at Beauxbatons, but they had been semi-separated since she accepted her Hogwarts position in 1989. Mr. Babbling had refused to move to England as he held an important position in the French Ministry of Magic, but the two remained happily married despite (or perhaps because of) their separation for the majority of every year. The consensus among the older Slytherin boys was that Babbling was the best-looking Hogwarts professor – Harry was mildly disturbed to hear that his mother was a close second – but unfortunately she was still not good-looking enough to get students to sign up for her rigorous Ancient Runes class unless the student had a personal reason for taking it anyway.

"Good morning, students," Babbling said brightly as she removed the fashionable but less-exotic-than-a-turban "pointy witch's hat" worn today and placed it atop a marble bust of a surly-looking Samuel Johnson. "Welcome all to Year One of Ancient Runes, which I promise you will be perhaps the most demanding class you take at Hogwarts but hopefully also the most fulfilling. At least for those of you who are able to master the material instead of being defeated by it."

As she spoke, the woman moved to the front of her desk and leaned against it. "The first thing I wish you to know is that the name of this class is a misnomer. While our topic of choice will be 'Ancient Runes' for several years to come, I prefer to think of this class as more of an 'Introduction to Magical Linguistics.' The magic that you all use for spellwork – wands waved in intricate patters while incantations are spoken aloud – only function as they do because of the runic arrays which undergird every single Charm. Because of the  _meaning_  that you instill in wand-waving in ways you yourself thus far do not even understand."

With that, she turned around and removed the sheet that was covering the object on her desk. It was revealed as a Muggle painting depicting a wooden smoking pipe of the kind a tobacco enthusiast would have described as "bent billiard" set against a pale tan background. Beneath the pipe was a quotation in French: " _Ceci n'est pas une pipe._ " Babbling turned back to her class.

"So, who here speaks French?" she inquired. After a few seconds of non-response, she focused her attention on Blaise. "Mr. Zabini? You spend time in France,  _oui_?"

"Oui, I mean, yes, Professor," said Blaise who seemed a bit flustered at being called on first. "The quotation translates as ' _This is not a pipe._ ' Although I'm not sure I understand since, well, it obviously  _is_  a pipe."

"Is it indeed, Mr. Zabini?" she asked with some amusement. "Class, does everyone agree that this is a pipe?"

No one spoke up, and several students looked back and forth in mild confusion. Finally, when it was clear that no one else was going to respond, Hermione somewhat reluctantly raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"It's not a pipe," she said. "You can't actually put tobacco in it, light it, and smoke it. It's just a representation of a pipe. The artist's point is that the representation of a thing is not the same as the thing itself."

"Well said, Miss Granger! Five points to Gryffindor."

From a row or two back, Harry thought he heard someone mutter " _know-it-all_ " but he couldn't identify the voice and did not wish to turn around while right in front of the teacher. Harry wasn't sure if Hermione had heard the slur, but judging by her slight frown, he suspected that was the case.

"This," Babbling continued, "is a reproduction of a work called  _The Treachery of Images_  by a Belgian Muggle artist called Rene Magritte. The original presently sits in an American museum. And what Miss Granger eloquently stated – a representation of a thing is not the same as the thing itself – is quite true ...  _for Muggles_. Consider the Summoning Charm. It is a simple spell normally not taught before the Fifth Year but only because of the difficulties of teaching young children how to properly visualize the spell's target and also the potential safety hazards of teaching young students to summon objects from all over the place before they are old enough to appreciate the dangers of ignoring one's surroundings. The incantation is  _Accio_ , which translates from the Latin roughly as ' _I summon_ ' and the wand movement is quite simple." She paused to draw a diagram of the wand movement into the air. "And yet, if a Muggle stood before us now, pointed even the finest crafted wand from Ollivander's selection, and called out Accio Hat for hours, he could never achieve what I can with even the sloppiest wandwork and a casually muttered " _ **ACCIO HAT.**_ "

True to her words, she cast the spell with deliberate sloppiness and was still able to summon her hat from atop Johnson's head. With an equally sloppy wave of her wand, the hat returned to its perch.

" _That_ , students, is what makes the difference between a wizard or witch and a Muggle. The true heart of all our magic derives from one singular ability:  _We can forge a connection between our ideas and the physical things those ideas represent._  I have told you that the word  _accio_  is simply Latin for  _I summon_. The Summoning Charm is one of the oldest Charms still in wide use today, and it dates back to the Roman Republic. But the creators of the spell relied upon more than Latin."

With that, she turned and began writing fiery symbols into the air in front of the class, four in all. "These symbols," she said when finished "are Akkadian cuneiform, a language dating back thousands of years before Rome. And these specific symbols written in this order represent the information matrix that... well, to greatly simplify things,' _explains_ ' to the world why a Summoning Charm should work. And now, watch what happens with, shall we say, a change in perspective."

With that, she slashed her wand in the direction of the cuneiform symbols, and they moved around in the air until they were all in a straight line, with some runes rotating or flipping themselves as they moved. Once they were in place, the four runes that comprised the Summoning Charm were laid on top of each other. And to Harry's surprise, the image produced by the superimposed runes looked  _remarkably like_  the wand movements that accompanied the Accio Charm.

"You see it now, students? The wand movements that accompany this Charm were designed to invoke the ancient Akkadian runes that symbolized the spell to be cast, but in a simplified format. And so it is with all Charms designed to be cast with wands. The wand movements transmit the meaning,  _the symbology_ , that underlies the intended effect, a symbology further reinforced by the use of words from a completely different language spoken aloud. With  _Accio_ , it is a direct translation of the Latin but the word which follows  _Accio_  is always uttered in the speaker's native tongue. Other spells use words from other languages or even neologisms – made-up words that invoke the concepts to be made manifest. For example, there is no language in which the words  _wingardium leviosa_  convey any true meaning or even make coherent sense. The world  _wing_  is English and invokes the idea of flight, while  _arduus_ and  _levis_  are Latin and suggest  _proudly elevated_  and  _light of weight_ , respectively. The suffix  _-ium_  is of Latin origin but in this instance conveys no meaning at all except to imply an object to which a verb action has been applied. In fact, the real reason the suffixes  _-osa_  and  _-ium_  were added was for arithmantic purposes, specifically to ensure that both words each had four syllables since the number four is conducive to motion-based spells."

Professor Babbling paused to take in her audience. On the front row, Potter, Zabini, Granger, Goldstein, and Li all seemed to follow her meaning so far (and in fact, Granger almost seemed slightly bored by the lecture). Further back, Greengrass and Davis followed, if a bit more hesitantly. Otherwise, it was a sea of blank stares. Babbling fought back a sigh. After all, she had years to make them understand one of the most arcane points of magical study.

"Among all magical cultures, everywhere in the world, there are four great principles that predominate the theory of magic: Arithmancy, Sympathy, Contagion, and Symbology. Arithmancy, about which Professor Vector will have much more to say, is the idea that numbers have inherent magical significance. Sympathy is the idea that two things which seem similar should be able to affect on another. Contagion is the idea that two things once connected should be able to affect one another still. Symbology is the idea that a symbol that represents something should be able to affect the thing symbolized. While all four are valid ways of approaching magic, for you students who were born and raised here in Wizarding Britain, arithmancy and symbology are most important, for it is only among cultures who rely on wands that we find the ability to easily  _draw_  our symbols and numbers in the air. Even among the most skilled practitioners of the Far East, it is no easy thing to use a staff or sword to draw symbols in the air in a manner that conveys meaning well enough to work magic."

"For some of you, even your very names invoke symbology although likely in ways you do not understand. Although the practice is dying out, it has been the custom in many old wizarding families to consult with nomenographers – a type of seer who specializes in the symbology of names – prior to the birth of children to ensure that the name eventually chosen for each newborn child is symbolically important enough to help that child maximize his or her wizarding potential. In the earliest days of Wizarding Britain, many of the old Roman families who founded our society used numenography to select new surnames for themselves when they formally broke ties with Mother Rome."

She glanced over at Harry. "Potter. A surname associated with creative shaping, appropriate for a family that has produced many skilled at Transfiguration."

Then, she looked farther back. "Greengrass. A surname associated with health, vitality, and life. Combined with Daphne, a Greek nymph with beauty enough to entrance the gods." Daphne blushed slightly at the description.

"Nomenography is a nearly extinct branch of divination, mainly because it is considered ...  _unfashionable_  to actively try to shape the destiny of one's own children. That said, my given name is Bathsheba, and I do not think it a coincidence that I eventually married a powerful political figure named David."

She smirked at that bon mot though Anthony Goldstein was the only one to register amusement at her remark, the other students being either more poised or simply unfamiliar with the Old Testament.

"We will begin our studies with Elder Futhark because in many ways it is the most simplistic and direct of all magical languages before we move on to increasingly sophisticated and subtle languages in future years. But do not think that because I describe Elder Futhark as simple and direct, it is something to be underestimated. The primary runes of Elder Futhark hold immense power precisely because they invoke simple, primal concepts largely devoid of nuance."

She turned again and with a flick of her wand, painted a flaming sigil in the air that resembled an S but with its curves straightened into jagged lines. "Mr. Goldstein, what is this and what is it's symbolic meaning?"

Anthony swallowed at being called on first, but he was a Ravenclaw and so, of course, was prepared. "It is the rune called Eiwaz, and it means 'yew,' referring in the tree," he said.

"Correct, although in the context of magical runes, its meaning extends to any wooden object. Three points to Ravenclaw." Babbling added another fiery rune next to the Eiwaz, one that resembled a jagged incomplete R. "And this one, Miss Granger?"

"Raido," Hermione said without hesitation. "In traditional Elder Futhark, it means 'ride' or 'journey.' It is commonly used in connection with transportation spells such as portkeys."

"Well stated," Babbling said with a smile. " _Another_ five points to Gryffindor. And this one, Miss Greengrass?" A third rune was added that resembled like a capital M.

A few rows back, Daphne squirmed for a moment. "Um, Mannaz?" she said timidly.

"Good guess, but no," the professor replied. "This is Ehwaz, which means 'horse.'" Next, she added a rune with one that resembled a jagged lightning bolt. "And finally, this one, Mr. ... Potter?" As she turned back around to look at Harry, she stumbled on his name and stared at him with a strange expression. Harry noticed but chose to ignore it.

"I believe that one is Sowilo, which represents the Sun," he said. "When used in magic, it simply implies raw magical power and is frequently used as a power source for permanently enchanted objects."

Babbling continued to stare at his face for a moment before shaking her head as if to clear it. "Well done as well, Mr. Potter. Five points to Slytherin." She addressed the whole class. "Sowilo is a special rune. Magically speaking, it simply invokes raw, unrefined power. Thus, it is incorporated into most runic arrays that enchant objects expected to do, well,  _anything_  of a physical nature. It is so powerful, in fact, that it is only rarely incorporated into wanded spellcasting. While there are a number of powerful spells that can be cast with staffs which make use of Sowilo, most attempts to incorporate it into wand-based spells simply cause the wand itself to backfire or even shatter. In point of fact, there is exactly one wand-based spell which makes use of Sowilo – and  _only_  Sowilo – in its wand moments: The Killing Curse."

She paused as a wave of nervousness passed over the class at the mention of the Killing Curse before resuming her lecture.

"With these four runes – Eiwaz, Raido, Ehwaz, and Sowilo – we have symbolic expressions of the concepts of wood, journey, horse and power. Or to put that another way, a wooden object ridden like a steed on long journeys and powered by magic. So it should not surprise you to learn that the earliest and simplest flying broomsticks were simply common household brooms onto which these four runes were carved. Such simple enchantments could be worked by any witch or wizard with even basic training in runic magic, though they were grossly inferior to the modern custom-built brooms produced today by professional broomstick manufacturing firms which often incorporate dozens of runic arrays into their creations to allow for features such as Cushioning Charms and the like. The  _reason_  brooms are our preferred mode of flying travel is  _precisely because_  the only thing that could make use of this particular and easy-to-inscribe runic sequence would be a wooden object that could be ridden astride like a horse."

With a flick of her wand, she dismissed the four runes. "There are thirty-six Elder Futhark runes, of which twelve have been hidden from the knowledge of Muggles because they involve strictly magical concepts and so were proscribed by the Statute of Secrecy. Throughout this term, we will focus on one per class session, reviewing all the primary and sub-textual meanings associated with each rune. Then, we will begin learning how the interact with one another before constructing simple and later more complex runic arrays."

From there, Professor Babbling outlined the course objectives for the remainder of the school year and for each subsequent year of Ancient Runes through NEWTs. She also informed the class that over the Christmas Break, each of them would be responsible for personally enchanting a non-magical broom to fly ... and would be graded on how well it  _did_  fly. The end of year project would see the class broken up into teams who would jointly devise a runic array of no less than seven runes (seven being the most arithmantically stable number) that would be used to enchant a mundane object to have a magical effect. By the time class ended, a few students were already contemplating dropping the class.

Blaise Zabini was the last to leave. Before he did, he turned back to the teacher and started to speak. Before he could, however, the woman simply shook her head  _no_ , and then gently placed her hands just below her neck, atop where a black and silver amulet rested beneath her blouse. Blaise closed his mouth, nodded, and placed his own hand atop the identical amulet that was hidden under his shirt in brief communion. Then, he turned and left to catch up with his friends.

* * *

_**Potions** _

Harry's first potions class of the year (double potions with Gryffindor) passed without incident ... although he assumed that the "incident" would happen afterwards. Today was the day that Jim Potter was going to apologize to Professor Snape for his long ago and ill-fated decision to insult the man and call him "Snivellus" on his very first day of First Year Potions. Harry briefly made eye contact with Jim and mouthed " _good luck_ " but then quickly exited. He didn't know if the imminent exchange would somehow bridge the gap between Jim and Professor Snape or make their hostility worse than ever, but either way, he expected it to be profoundly uncomfortable for anyone watching.

Nervously, Jim made his way forward to the front of the room where Snape sat behind a desk with his head down while writing notes in preparation for his next class. After several interminable seconds, Jim coughed as respectfully as he could.

"Class is dismissed, Other Potter," Snape said icily without raising his head.

"I know that ... sir. I just ... well, I was hoping I could speak to you for a moment between classes."

The quill pen paused, and Snape slowly raised his head to glare at the boy. "Regarding what, Other Potter," he said with a sneer.

Jim suppressed the flash of anger he felt at Snape's intentionally insulting phrase " _Other Potter_ ," which was how he differentiated between Jim and his twin –  _Sensible Potter_. He took a deep breath. "I wanted to offer you an apology, Professor Snape."

The sneer did not disappear, but Jim could tell that Snape was at least mildly surprised. "An apology? And what, dare I ask, are you apologizing for this time?"

"Well, it's nothing  _new_  I've done, but ... it occurred to me that ... that I never apologized to you for insulting you on our first day of class together back when I was a First Year. When I called you ... that name. It was wrong of me and completely disrespectful and ... well, I just wanted to tell you face-to-face that I'm sorry for what I said."

Snape lifted his chin haughtily. "Your apology is rather tardy, Other Potter. About two years or so, I should say. What brought this on?" His eyes narrowed. "Did your brother put you up to this? Or your mother?"

"No," Jim said quickly. "Well, no about my mum, anyway. Harry sort of indirectly put me up to it. You see, last year, when I was in the Chamber of Secrets dying from basilisk poison..." At that, Snape's eyes  _did_  widen in surprise. "I apologized to Harry for the way I'd treated him and asked him to apologize to you on my behalf. But then ... well, I didn't die like I thought I would, and Harry told me I'd have to apologize myself. So ... here I am, I guess."

As the boy spoke, he became increasingly embarrassed at his rambling. Snape said nothing for several seconds. Then, in a swift motion, he cast spells to bar the door and to set up a privacy ward.

"We will speak of these things today, Potter, and then, we will not speak of them again. Let me begin by making one thing perfectly clear. I  _despise_  your father, and he despises me. James Potter and his band of hoodlums made my school years utterly miserable, and if he or any of them were standing there in your place offering an apology, I would  _never_  accept it under any circumstances. And  _you_ , young man, have spent most of your first two years at Hogwarts acting just as arrogantly and foolishly as your father did before you. Frankly, you epitomize everything I detest about James Potter and Gryffindor House."

The boy looked stricken at Snape's words and bowed his head in embarrassment. Snape sighed.

"Except ...  _except_  ..." Snape paused as if struggling to find the words. "You have your mother's eyes."

Jim's head jerk up in surprise as the older man continued.

"And I suppose it is possible, _just barely possible_ , that you might also possess some fragment of her intellect and her sensibility and her capacity for decency buried deep,  _deep_ , beneath that appalling crust that looks like James Potter reborn. If you genuinely wish to show contrition for your insults to me, then do so by cultivating those traits. You will cease looking constantly for reasons to attack the Slytherin students and will refrain from referring to all of them as  _slimy_. You will resist the insipid Gryffindor impulse to hurl yourself into danger at every opportunity. And for Merlin's sake, you will put some effort into my class! Your mother, had she not married and sired children at an absurdly young age, would likely have completed a Potions mastery around the same time as I did and might well be sitting in this chair instead of me. It is inconceivable that her son, after two years of Potions, has not yet figured out how to properly chop ...  _anything_!"

Jim blushed slightly at that last remark as Snape leaned back in his chair.

"Do that, Other Potter, and I might accept your apology. In fact, I  _might_  even call you something besides  _Other Potter_."

"Yes sir!" Jim said excitedly. Snape growled softly and waved his hand in dismissal as he returned to his notes. The boy quickly left, but as the door closed behind him, Snape looked up, his brow furrowed as he remembered another conversation from nearly two years before.

" _It has been twenty years since you and I were sorted into different houses_ ," he'd said to Lily. " _And at long last, I can finally and truthfully say ... I'm over you._ "

Snape's mouth crinkled into a rueful expression as he contemplated just how "over" Lily he really was. Then, he shook his head and returned to his work.

* * *

_**Defense Against the Dark Arts** _

Heading into the first DADA class of the year, the general feelings of the Third Year students were mixed. Gilderoy Lockhart may have turned out to be a deranged petrifying lunatic, but up until that point, he had been one of the best DADA instructors in recent memory. It didn't hurt that, according to most of the female student body, he was the best-looking male faculty member since ... ever. His successor, Rufus Scrimgeour, on the other hand, was a distinguished former auror, but his teaching skills were unknown, and the consensus descriptor of his appearance was not so much "dreamy" as "terrifying."

"Good afternoon, students," he began in a gruff voice. "Welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts, etcetera etcetara. I am Professor Rufus Scrimgeour, late of the Auror Department. And if you want to know any more about my personal history, ask around because I'm not inclined to waste my time on biographical frippery. Now, in accordance with the Ministry and ICW guidelines on defensive magic instruction, your Third Year is supposed to focus on recognizing and defending against Class XXX and XXXX creatures, with a brief overview of Class XXXXX creatures at the end of the Spring term. While I will be following that general outline, recent events have led me to conclude that two potential magical dangers normally reserved for higher-level classes deserve special and immediate consideration and so will be added to your curriculum. Accordingly, open your textbooks and turn to page 394."

Dutifully, the class did as instructed, and on page 394, across from the table outlining helpful ways to identify a werewolf, was a moving picture of a Dementor. A chill settled over the classroom, and both Harry and Jim swallowed as they remembered their own face-to-face confrontation with one of the creatures.

"As you are all aware unless you are hopelessly unobservant," Scrimgeour continued, "Hogwarts is currently playing host to about a hundred of these creatures. Ostensibly, they are to remain congregated in the airspace above the Forbidden Forest, far enough away from the school to ensure that their supernatural properties do not affect the student body in general and so that no students will be at risk for their more direct powers. Still, accidents happen, as they say, and so all students will receive instruction on defending against Dementors. With that in mind, your first homework assignment will be a report – no less than 18 inches, no more than 26 – on the known characteristics and biology of the Dementor followed by at least three practical strategies for evading or defending against one. I'll give you a few pointers for free, but don't expect full marks if you just regurgitate what I'm about to say."

"Item One. While the Dementors are here, a chocolate bar will be provided at every meal for each student. For wizards and witches, chocolate serves as an emotional stimulant that instills positive emotions to counteract the aura produced by Dementors which typically causes feelings of depression and a fixation on bad memories. Please eat chocolate in moderation and, of course, always brush your teeth after every meal."

"Item Two. Training will be offered outside of class in how to perform the Patronus Charm. To be honest, I'd always thought it impossible for anyone below the NEWTs level to produce a Patronus, but my predecessor apparently proved me wrong. Mr. Longbottom, I am informed that you are the youngest person on record as having produced a corporeal Patronus. Would you be so good as to demonstrate for the class?"

Neville blushed slightly before standing up and pointing is wand at an open area to the left of the teacher's desk. " _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM.**_ " There was a familiar flash of silvery light, and then Elby was there in all his ursine glory. The students who had not seen the bear Patronus before were all suitably amazed (and one or two who were nearest its manifestation were also startled and frightened).

"Well done, Mr. Longbottom," said the professor. "Most impressive. Five points to Gryffindor. However, class, you will be pleased to note that as impressive as this manifestation is, a true corporeal Patronus is not necessary to repel a Dementor. The most basic manifestation of the Charm, a silvery haze sometimes referred to as a mist Patronus, will generally ward off one or two, through the corporeal Patronus is required to fend of more than that or to repel even a single Dementor that is, for some reason, particularly aggressive."

At that, Harry crooked an eyebrow, though he did not raise his hand to inquire further. Back on the train, he'd faced off against a Dementor which indeed particularly aggressive and was hardly slowed down at all by his mist Patronus, even though he'd cast it more than once.

"We will begin offering classes this coming Sunday afternoon and every Sunday thereafter for the benefit of students who wish to attempt to learn the Patronus Charm. These classes are optional for Fourth Years and below but are mandatory for Fifth Years and up."

Then, Scrimgeour paused dramatically. "And with that out of the way, let us turn to the second magical danger I wish to discuss that are not normally a part of the Third Year curriculum: dark wizards. And more specifically, Death Eaters."

Most of the class shifted uneasily at the mention of Death Eaters. Everyone knew that five of Voldemort's inner circle had escaped Azkaban, but was Professor Scrimgeour really planning on teaching Third Years to  _fight_ dark wizards?

"Normally, the material I am about to discuss would be more appropriate for History of Magic, but since it does not consist of tedious trivia about goblin uprisings from the 15th century, I doubt Professor Binns will ever touch on it. So let us begin with a seemingly simple question: What is a Death Eater? Some might limit the term to those who took the Dark Mark and swore allegiance to You-Know-Who, but that number is actually quite small, no more than a few dozen at most, many of whom successfully proved before a court of law that they had been magically coerced into taking the Mark. Beyond marked Death Eaters, there were hundreds if not thousands of unmarked wizards and witches who served You-Know-Who in some capacity. Some were enthusiastic thugs and terrorists who derived sick pleasure from attacking Muggles and Muggleborn, as well as other wizards and witches who simply attracted their ire. Others ideologically agreed with Death Eater philosophy but lacked the courage of their convictions enough to take up arms in support of it, although they were happy to provide other forms of support. Still others wanted nothing to do with Death Eater philosophy but were bribed or blackmailed or brainwashed or Imperiused into serving anyway. Indeed, when You-Know-Who was destroyed on Halloween of 1981, no body was found. We only know of his destruction due to the fact that people who he had personally placed under the Imperius were instantly freed from his control, along with those that  _they_  had placed under the Imperius at his command and all those others that  _their_  victims had put under the curse as well. A cascade failure of Imperius control of a sort that only happens with the death of the original wizard who cast the curse, as its effects cannot survive post mortem."

Harry shivered at the professor's description of the Imperius Curse, even though he knew full well of its insidious potential ever since Regulus had used it on the real Gilderoy Lockhart to force him to self-administer the Tabula Rasa spell. On some level, Harry thought he was supposed to be deeply offended by Reg's use of an Unforgivable, but he had managed successfully not to think about it until Scrimgeour raised the topic just now. Meanwhile, Jim swallowed nervously. After all these years of being told that he'd been the one to destroy Voldemort, it had never occurred to him that no body had been recovered even though word of his death had seemed to spread almost instantly in its aftermath.

"We will spend part of each class this term reviewing the history of the Death Eater movement, from its origins as a counter-reaction to the Muggleborn civil rights movement in the 1950's and 60's to its embrace of anti-Muggle terrorism in the 1970's on to its eventual collapse after the destruction of You-Know-Who in 1981. To facilitate discussion, each student will be assigned a research topic on some facet of the Death Eater movement, whether pertaining to its history, some of its more infamous crimes, or some of its most influential members. These reports will be turned in to me before you leave for Christmas Break and will later be presented orally to the class at some point in the Spring Term. If anyone has any particular interests, please see me outside of class, and if I judge it relevant and broad enough, I may permit you to pursue it as a special project. Otherwise, all project topics will be assigned by me."

"And now that the interesting portion of today's class is complete, we shall proceed to the far less engaging topic of how to drive away an attacking grindylow by violently snapping its fingers off. Kindly turn back in your textbook to page 4."

There was a rustle of pages as the class complied. Harry found it difficult to concentrate on Scrimgeour's lecture, however, and eventually, he went through an Occlumency exercise to partition in brain into two separate thought tracks, one to listen to the lecture without distraction and take proper notes and the other to ruminate on what Scrimgeour had said about the Death Eaters and the proposed research assignments. Later, after the lesson had ended, Harry waited behind to speak with the man.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" the man said amiably while shuffling some papers.

"You said, sir, that we could pick our own research topics about the Death Eaters. I, er, had one in mind, but I think I might need some help in getting the materials to write a paper on it."

"Oh? What is your proposed topic?"

"The trial of Sirius Black," Harry said without preamble.

The DADA professor turned to study Harry, and while the boy was confident that he was not being actively legilimized, he still had the uncomfortable sensation of being scrutinized by a powerful and observant intellect that had spent decades ferreting out hidden truths. It was intimidating, bordering on unnerving. After a few seconds of such consideration, Scrimgeour spoke again.

"A provocative topic indeed. And what research materials do you think you require? I seem to recall the Daily Prophet covering that trial quite thoroughly."

"Only in summary form, Professor. I thought it would be better to go back to the original source material, so I was hoping you might be able to help me obtain an actual copy of the trial transcript."

The man nodded. "And why me, exactly?"

Harry swallowed despite himself. "Well, sir, you are the former Chief Auror. I thought you might have some contacts that could make it easier to get a copy of the transcript."

"I might," he said drily. "I find it curious, however, that you would approach me about this instead of going to your father, the  _current_  Chief Auror. Might I assume that for some reason you don't want James Potter to know about your research?"

" _And just like that, he cuts to it_ ," Harry thought ruefully. " _I really shouldn't plan on getting away with anything sneaky where this guy's concerned._ " But while obfuscation seemed out of the question, Harry thought of a misdirection that might work.

"My father chose not to testify personally in the Sirius Black case even though he was the arresting auror. He and my mother just contributed magical affidavits. He didn't even attend the trial even though Black had supposedly been his best friend for a decade or more and yet had betrayed him to You-Know-Who. From what he's told me, he never even inquired as to why Sirius Black betrayed him. I thought that was ... odd."

Scrimgeour studied the boy for several seconds more before responding. "Yes. Decidedly so. Very well, Mr. Potter. Consider me ... intrigued. I'll make arrangements for you to get a certified copy of the Black trial transcript."

"Thank you sir," Harry said before turning to leave the room. Halfway to the door, though, Scrimgeour spoke again.

"I do hope the results of your research are fruitful, Mr. Potter and justify whatever effort I expend on your behalf."

" _Translation: I'm gonna owe him for this,_ " Harry thought to himself while keeping his face a mask of serenity. "I certainly hope so as well, Professor Scrimgeour. I'll be very grateful for any assistance you can give me."

Scrimgeour nodded and returned to his class notes as the next batch of students began filtering in. First Years, it looked like. Harry mad his way outside, and once in the hall, he exhaled deeply. He wasn't actually sure whether his research would bear any fruit at all, but a chance to read the elusive Black transcript couldn't be ignored. He headed off to his next class.

* * *

_**Introductory Meeting for an Unnamed Club** _

Harry's final class of the day was Arithmancy which passed uneventfully. It was taught by a strict but seemingly fair teacher named Septima Vector who warned of massive amounts of homework. The focus of the class was on the magical significance of numbers. For example, while the words incorporated into a spell were selected according to their symbolic significance (as Professor Babbling had discussed), the principles of Arithmancy determined things like how many syllables an incantation would need to best achieve the Charm's intended purpose. The class promised to be both rigorous and, unfortunately, rather boring, at least in Harry's initial estimation. For starters, the syllabus indicated that the first  _two months_  of Arithmancy classes would be devoted exclusively to the occult significance of the number seven. Harry noted that Vector's first name – Septima – was actually derived from the Latin word for seven, and he considered asking her if her parents had consulted a nomenographer before deciding it would be rude.

Dinner came after Arithmancy, followed by the organizational meeting for Hermione's as-yet-unnamed club. Third Years in attendance included Harry, Blaise, and Theo from Slytherin House; Hermione, Luna, Jim, and Ron from Gryffindor; Anthony and Sue Li from Ravenclaw; and Susan Bones, Justin, and Kevin Entwhistle from Hufflepuff. There was a smattering of students from other years (Penelope Clearwater and Colin Creevey, among a few others), but mainly it was kids from Hermione's peer group. Conspicuous by their absences (given their well-known friendship with both Harry and Hermione) were Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley, and Amy Wilkes. In fact, out of nearly twenty students in attendance, Luna, Ron, and Susan were the only Purebloods, though several Half-bloods like Jim had been raised almost entirely in wizarding society.

Hermione had chosen the History of Magic classroom for the group's first meeting. Everyone else took a seat facing the teacher's desk while Hermione repositioned a chair in front of it to face the club. Harry smiled. Apparently the thought of simply sitting behind the desk in Binn's official "teacher's chair" was unthinkable for her. As the group settled in, he noticed the girl looking in his direction. He, Blaise, Theo, Jim, and Ron were all grouped together, and for a few seconds, Hermione seemed to study them all with an odd expression. Then, she blinked her eyes repeatedly and shook her head. Taking a deep breath, the obviously nervous girl began.

"Thank you all for coming. I've talked to most of you briefly about this, but just so we all understand what this group is about ... Over the course of the last few months, we've all had to face some disturbing truths. Let me start by saying ... I love magic. I am proud to be a witch and to be a member of a magical society.  _However_ , to be honest, I also find that I am uncomfortable with some aspects of wizarding culture. And in particular, I am very uncomfortable with the idea that under some circumstances the government of our magical society can pass laws that will essentially inflict  _mind control_  on citizens and even on children. But what I find most troubling about this is that ... no one seems to care. And worse, a lot of our fellow students seem to think that because some of us were raised in Muggle society, we simply ' _don't understand_ ' why things like this  _Ultimate Sanction_  are acceptable, and so we should just be quiet and accept how things are." She paused to catch her breath. "Well, I'm sorry, but I just can't accept that someone I consider a friend is going to be treated horribly because of  _a spell_ that everyone just happily accepts as part of magical society. I guess that's just the ' _big mouth know-it-all_ ' in me, but that's the way I feel."

Theo grimaced slightly at being made the center of attention. Even though Hermione never mentioned his name specifically, everyone at the school knew his situation, and while he was grateful for support, he had no interest in being either an object of pity or a mascot for some Muggleborn rights group.

Further back, Sue Li spoke up. "I agree with all that in principle, Granger, but ... what do you want us to do about it? I mean, as far as I know, none of us can do anything to counteract the Ultimate Sanction's effects. It would take the whole Wizengamot to overturn the magical law that makes it work. So what really is the point of this group?"

"Well, my hope is that this club can be a way for the Muggleborn, the Muggle-raised and ... the Friends of Muggleborns, I guess ... to come together and support one another. We can also work together to research issues like the Ultimate Sanction and see if anything can be done about them before anyone else gets hurt by them. And also, I would hope that through this club we could both learn more about Pureblood society and customs while also helping Pureblooded wizards and witches to understand the Muggle-raised mindset a bit better. I think the best way to counteract bigotry on both sides is work for mutual understanding."

Some of the students nodded in agreement, but others seemed more doubtful. Anthony Goldstein raised his hand. "I don't have a problem with any of that, but I would also like for the club to address other elements of the Muggle-Wizarding divide. Before you suggested this group, Hermione, I was going to ask you to join some of us in researching ways to allow Muggle technology to work in high-magic areas. Or failing that, to research how to create magical items that would more properly mimic Muggle technology. I heard you and Harry dabbled in that back in First Year but chose not to continue."

"That would be because we got a week of particularly nasty detentions for blowing out all the windows in a Second Floor classroom," Harry said drily. "Along with my eardrums. On the bright side, at least I got a fairly obscure, sonic-based attack Charm out of it."

"Oooh! Share!" said Jim, who was always on the lookout for new combat Charms. Harry laughed and said " _later_."

"Certainly, we can use the club as a springboard for research into things like that," Hermione said. "So long as it doesn't get in the way of our main goals."

"By the way," asked Kevin. "What's the club's name?"

"Well," Hermione began hesitantly, "that's probably our first official item of business..."

"Personally," interrupted Blaise with a smirk, "I still think ' _Society for the Prevention of Abusive Magic_ ' is a fine name."

"No. It's. Not." Hermione said curtly.

"I kind of like that," Penelope Clearwater said. "What's the problem with that name, Hermione?"

"She thinks the acronym is undignified," Harry said with a chuckle.

"What ... S.P.A.M.?" asked Susan Bones to which several Muggle-raised students sniggered in response.

"We are  _not_  calling it S.P.A.M.!" Hermione said more forcefully.

"Well why not?" asked Justin Finch-Fletchley. "I mean, this club is, as you said, for Muggleborn, Muggle-raised, and Friends of Muggles – nice phrasing that, by the way. PC but not obnoxiously so."

"Yeah," added Anthony. "And what could be more Mugglish than  _Spam_!"

Hermione started to respond but then paused and looked at Goldstein in confusion. "Anthony, aren't you Jewish?"

The Ravenclaw straightened up in his chair and raised his chin haughtily. "Just because I would never actually  _eat_ Spam does not mean that I am unaware of its cultural significance."

By this point, the Purebloods in the room seemed hopelessly confused, and Ron leaned over towards Harry. "What is Spam, anyway?"

Harry answered with authority. "Spam is a canned pork-based meat product sold in Muggle grocery stores. Depending on who you ask, it is either a Muggle delicacy or the nastiest food stuff ever invented."

"And as an added bonus," Blaise continued mischievously, "if we go with S.P.A.M., we've already got a ready-made club song!"

"Blaise,  _don't!_ " Hermione said plaintively. But it was too late, as Zabini suddenly burst into song.

"SPAM,  _spam_ , spam, Spam! SPAM,  _spam_ , spam, Spam!"

He was soon joined by Anthony, Kevin, and Justin, who all knew the song in question and merrily joined in with three-part harmony.

"Lovely Spaaaaam! Wonderful Spaaam! Lovely Spaaaaam! Wonderful Spaaam!"

At that, Ron, Jim, and Theo all turned expectantly towards Harry. Unfortunately, the young Slytherin had never been exposed to  _Monty Python's Flying Circus_  while living with the Dursleys and so was at a loss himself. He gave a shrug. "Sorry. I got nothing."

In the front of the room, Hermione Granger covered her face with her hands as if trying to block out a recurring nightmare.

* * *

_**Introductory Meeting for a Different Club** _

Meanwhile, a much better attended, furnished, and catered meeting for the Hogwarts Cultural Preservation Society was taking place at the same time. It was held in a very spacious and comfortable room on the Sixth Floor that many years before had been the meeting space for a long defunct social group called the Slug Club. There were over forty students in attendance, and the club's organizers had arranged for punch and light appetizers provided by Hogwarts house elves. The first half-hour had been given over to socializing which nearly led to an unpleasant exchange near the punch bowl.

"Ginevra?!" exclaimed Drusilla Crabbe at the sight of her year-mate, Ginny Weasley of the notorious ' _blood traitor Weasleys_.' "What brings you here? I mean, isn't your family ... um?"

Ginny favored Drusilla with an expression that was bland bordering on haughty. "Isn't my family  _what_ , Drusilla? A member of the Sacred 28? Why yes indeed we are!"

Drusilla swallowed tightly at the reminder that, for all her family's Pureblood pretensions, the Crabbes could never demonstrate a purity of ancestry even close to the Weasleys, despite their current reduced circumstances. She gave a tight smile and beat a hasty retreat. As she left, Amy Wilkes came up beside Ginny to refill her own punch glass.

"I think you enjoyed that," she said.

Ginny shrugged. "A little," she said under her breath. "But it's not really any fun to beat Crabbe at a game I don't care about."

Amy nodded. "So what's the game plan?"

"Blend in. Look and act bigoted but not obnoxiously so. Say mean things about Theo every now and then. Be attentive without it being obvious that we're taking notes for Harry."

Amy took a sip of punch without responding, and the two girls went in search of a place to sit, not noticing how, across the room, the Carrow Twins studied them with intense unblinking eyes. The room was crowded despite its size, and after about half an hour, its organizers started moving chairs about and transfiguring benches for people to sit on. To Ginny's surprise, only about a third of those in attendance were Slytherins. The Cultural Preservation Society obviously had Pureblood Slytherin fingerprints all over it, but the upper-year Slytherins were canny enough to hold back and let Purebloods from other houses take the lead and be the public face of the new organization. In fact, there were no Slytherins among the club's officers. Officially, Cedric Diggory, Cho Chang, and Oliver Wood were in charge, though Amy had quickly intuited that the Greengrass sisters, Cassius Warrington, and some of their older peers were probably running things.

Once everyone was seated, Cedric stepped forward to give an introductory speech. "Welcome all to the inaugural meeting of the Hogwarts Cultural Preservation Society. I thank you all for coming to what I hope is the first of many enjoyable evenings to come. I want to stress that while this is at the moment a Pureblood organization, we will not in any way discriminate against any non-Purebloods who want to join us should there be any in the future. In fact, we encourage you to invite Halfbloods and even Muggleborns so that they understand what we're all about and don't get the wrong idea. Our society is not based on the idea that Purebloods are better than other wizards and witches. But by the same token, neither are we any less than them. We are simply a society with its own rich customs and history, and we deserve to have those customs and history respected just as much as anyone raised among Muggles."

"Hear, hear!" exclaimed Cormac McLaggen, and a few others clapped politely.

Diggory nodded to Cho, who continued the opening speech. "To that end, our plan is to meet regularly so that we can interact with fellow Purebloods who share a common heritage and also so that we can teach one another our family histories and traditions. Many of us have family members who work for the Ministry or even hold seats in the Wizengamot. Yet very rarely are we taught about what the Ministry and the Wizengamot do outside of the individual interests of our families. Think of the CPS as a chance to network with like-minded wizards and witches who will one day aid you in forming the backbone of our society. After all, it is only by understanding our own social heritage that we can help others to understand that heritage instead of wanting to tear it down."

Neville Longbottom frowned at that. "Is that something you think we should be worried about? Muggleborns tearing down our heritage?"

The question caught Cho and Cedric off-guard. "It's not that we're ...  _worried_  per se," Cedric said. "But at the same time, we need to be aware of how past conflicts between Purebloods and Muggleborn had played out and escalated into public violence. I don't think anyone here is a future Death Eater – I hope not, anyway – but one thing I've learned lately is that You-Know-Who might never have risen to power if there hadn't been a lot of Pureblooded wizards who were terrified of the changes Muggleborn activists of the 50's and 60's had wanted to make."

"Like what?" Ginny asked doubtfully.

To her surprise, Daphne Greengrass spoke up from behind her. "Like a Marriage law, for starters." Everyone turned to look at the young Slytherin.

"A Marriage Law?" Ginny asked in confusion.

"After Professor Lockhart gave us that lecture about werewolves and Dark Lords in which he mentioned Alexander McAvity, I decided to look him up. There were a lot of outrageous ideas put forth by his movement, and some of his supporters were even more radical than McAvity himself. Some of his most extreme supporters essentially called for the eventual abolition of Purebloods as a concept. To bring that about, they wanted a law to make it illegal for a wizard and witch to marry if they had more than four wizarding grandparents between the two of them. In your case, Weasley, all four of your grandparents were magical, so it would be illegal for you to marry anyone who wasn't either a Muggle or a third-generation squib. And if you couldn't find a suitable match on your own, the Ministry – under Muggleborn guidance – would choose a mate for you."

Ginny and Amy both looked aghast at Daphne.

"That law never got anywhere near passage," Cedric continued. "But they came very close to forcing the passage of other laws and regulations, especially after they got a Muggleborn named Nobby Leach elected Minister. Laws to inflate the OWL and NEWT scores of Muggleborns so that they could get Ministry jobs they hadn't actually earned. Laws to establish quotas for how many Muggleborns would be  _guaranteed_ Ministry jobs, along with relaxed entry standards for the Auror Corps or St. Mungo's for Muggleborns who otherwise couldn't pass the entry exams. Laws to force family businesses that had been in operation for generations to go under unless they gave jobs and even a stake in the business to Muggleborn applicants."

"And consider this, Longbottom," Zacharias Smith added pompously. "Your family is Ancient and Noble. It has been in Britain since the 5th century and has held a voice in the Wizengamot since it was founded. But if the Dark Lord McAvity had gotten his way, you would  _not_  be guaranteed the Longbottom Seat when you come of age. Instead, if you wanted it, you would have to win an  _election_  for it. Every Wizengamot member would have to stand for election, just like the Minister does." He snorted in amazement. "Think about that! They wanted to tear down a system of government that has endured for over a thousand years simply because due to an accident of breeding, they weren't born at the top, and so they wanted to drag down the ones who were. I mean, Wizarding Britain  _exists_  because of the Vows of Unity that bind the Wizengamot together. Who even  _knows_ what would happen if those vows were broken without good reason?"

Amy Wilkes spoke up. "That's all well and good, but what I want to know is: What does all this have to do with Theo No-Name?" There was a flurry of tension and perhaps anger that swirled through the room at the mention of Theo's name. Except for Ginny and Amy (who due to a peculiar quirk of her family status was not presently bound by any oaths to the Wizengamot), every single person in the room was under the effects of the Sanction.

"I mean," she continued, "that  _is_  what led Purebloods from all four Houses to decide to start this club, right? Honestly, I see a lot of people in this room who wouldn't have given each other the time of day just a few months ago."

Cedric looked away while he worked to bring his emotions under control. He honestly wanted this group to be about more than Theo No-Name, but he couldn't deny that the outcast's presence at Hogwarts was a triggering event.

"Fair enough," he finally said. "You're right. The presence of the outcast at the school was what brought us all together. But another part of it was the incident the other day at Platform 9 3/4. And particularly, what young Goldstein said to us all. I did some research on that ...  _Dachau_  place he mentioned. It was ... horrible. But it was also  _irrelevant_ to the outcast's situation. I know the Muggleborns and Muggle-raised think what happened to Theo No-Name is unfair, and perhaps it is. But ... the law that made him outcast is the law of the Wizengamot. It is the law that binds our nation together and makes all of us a part of it." He paused and took a deep breath. "I don't know if I can explain it in terms that someone unaffected can understand, Wilkes, but ... my magic tells me that Theo No-Name is an enemy and is unclean and should not be a part of our world. Now, I certainly don't plan to start anything with him and I hope none of you will as well. If nothing else, the faculty have made it clear that they won't stand for it. But I can't deny what my magic tells me anymore than what my eyes and ears do. It's too much a part of who I am to ignore."

At that, most of the assembled students actually burst into applause in response to Cedric Diggory articulating what they all felt but could not put into words. Ginny and Amy glanced at each other nervously before joining in the applause with as much enthusiasm as they could fake.

* * *

_**Meanwhile, back at S.P.A.M.** _

After an hour of discussing an agenda for the group, the inaugural meeting of S.P.A.M. finally broke up. Immediately, Hermione moved to speak with Theo, but an excited Anthony Goldstein reached her first.

"So I know it's just our first meeting," he said, "and we've got a lot of potential avenues for research. But since you've obviously actually thought about this more than I have, do you have any ideas for research avenues on why magic and technology don't mix?"

Although she heard Anthony's question, her attention was focused on Theo No-Name who had swiftly made his way out of the room without speaking to anyone else. "Plastic and electricity," she said distractedly.

"What?" Anthony said in surprise.

"What?" Hermione answered back as if fully noticing the boy for the first time. Meanwhile, Harry and Jim moved closer to listen in on the conversation.

"Plastics and electricity?" Anthony repeated. "What do you base that on? Have you found any research on this topic?"

Hermione stammered for a bit before answering. "Oh, yes. I read that in a book ... somewhere. I'll have to look it up and get you the citation. But, um, yes – high levels of magic cause the structure of some kinds of plastic to degrade and also cause electrical currents to ... go all funny, making electrically-powered items likely to overload."

"The plastic issue is easily overcome," said Sue Li as she approached. "Muggles only use plastic for their devices because modern manufacturing techniques make it cheaper and easier to shape plastic into the form you need than natural materials. But with Transfiguration, there's no reason you couldn't shape the casing of, say, a TV or a stereo out of wood or metal."

"Hmm." Anthony seemed lost in thought for a moment. "But it's a much bigger problem if the mere presence of magic changes the properties of electricity. Is there any way to insulate something from magic?"

No one said anything at first, but then, Harry gave an exclamation. "Yes! Orichalcum! It's some ... stuff you can make with alchemy that's magic resistant." He turned to Jim. "The killer trains from last year's birthday party were made with orichalcum. It's what let them slice through a Protego like it wasn't even there." Jim shuddered at the recollection of his and Harry's disastrous 12th birthday party.

"Well, then," Hermione said. "I guess you've got your research avenues, Anthony. Let me know how it goes."

Soon, everyone had left the meeting room, and Hermione headed off towards Gryffindor Tower. She hadn't gotten very far when she heard Harry calling after her. She stopped and waited for him to catch up.

"So," he began with a bit of a smirk. "Now that everyone's gone ... how did you  _really_  learn that magic negatively affects plastic and electricity?"

"I told you back at the meeting," Hermione began.

"Aw, pull the other one, Hermione. We both know you have a photographic memory. There's no way that you could ever have read something as interesting as 'magic reacts badly with plastic and electricity' and not remembered what book it was in. I reckon you found it while perusing something you shouldn't have but you didn't want to say in front of the others."

Hermione looked away for a moment in embarrassment. "Alright, Harry. You've caught me. Last year, I managed to trick Professor Lockhart into giving me a pass to the Restricted Session. I was curious as to what sort of books were in there, and I found a book of research about magic and Muggle technology that the Ministry had suppressed. But I didn't want to explain where I found it, and given the sensitive nature of the research, I don't think Anthony or anyone else will be able to check it out. Satisfied?"

Harry studied his first friend for a second or two. "Sure. Thanks for being honest with me." Then, he looked around the corridor. "Can you make it back to the Tower by yourself?"

She gave him a  _look_  that reminded him she was a Gryffindor from the House Without Fear. He nodded, made his goodbyes and headed back to the Slytherin dungeon.

* * *

Later, Theo was alone in his room laying on his bed and staring intently at the ceiling when there was a soft click as Blaise entered through the secret passage. Theo snorted.

"I know we need to travel secretly because you and Harry dare not be seen with  _the outcast_ , but does that mean I'm not entitled to any privacy at all?"

Blaise put his hands up in a placating manner. "Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to see how you were. I get the strong impression that you weren't happy with S.P.A.M. and its agenda. Especially its agenda regarding you."

Theo shrugged. "Well, I  _guess_ I'm happy that there are people who want to look after me. But ... most of them don't understand what it's going to be like. And I don't want anyone to get hurt because of me."

"Spare me the martyr act, Theo. It's not appealing. What's really got you upset?"

The other boy glared at Blaise. "Okay. If you must know, I think things are bad enough for me without being someone's  _project._  Even if it's Hermione Granger. I was afraid after last year that she was going to take up house elf rights or something silly like that. I never imagined that it would be  _me_  that she would take up as her Noble Cause. And frankly, I don't appreciate it."

Blaise chuckled. "You knew she was a Gryffindor when you befriended her, as did I. And neither of us will ever stop her from being ... her. Best to just hang on as best you can and divert her from her more Gryffindorish impulses."

Theo closed his eyes. "Yeah. Like that's going to happen."

* * *

Later, after checking in with Blaise and Theo and then collecting a "report" from Ginny and Amy, Harry entered his own room and prepared for bed. He'd been troubled since the S.P.A.M. meeting ended but he wasn't sure why. Finally, he opened up the drawer on the side table next to his bed and removed his enchanted mirror.

"Regulus Black," he said after tapping the mirror to activate it. A few seconds later, Regulus's face popped into view.

"Harry? What is it? You already talked to Sirius and me earlier today. Has something happened?"

"No, no. I ... just had a quick question for you. Last year, when you were Gilderoy Lockhart ... at any point did Hermione Granger persuade you to give her a pass to the Restricted Section?"

Regulus blinked a few times. "No, not that I recall. Why?"

"I don't know," Harry said thoughtfully. "It's just ... something odd. It's probably nothing." Harry and Regulus spoke for a few more minutes before signing off. But as Harry drifted off to sleep, his eerie and intuitive Legilimency instincts left him certain of one thing. It was not  _nothing_.

* * *

_**Introductory Meeting for a** _ _**Very** _ __**Different Club  
Just before Midnight  
Knockturn Alley**

The Boar's Tusk was perhaps the least reputable of the many disreputable bars and dives in Knockturn Alley. In fact, "disreputable" was an understatement – until political realities forced its name change in the 1940's, the bar was once called The Hanging Muggle. The place was packed tonight though because word had been sent out across Knockturn Alley. There was work to be done. Good paying work. Or at least there was for those who were willing to do what they were told and not really care about who got hurt along the way. None of the people in the front of the bar was carrying a Dark Mark, but there were  _a lot_  who eagerly would have if they'd impressed Lord Voldemort enough for him to offer it back in the day.

Peter Pettigrew sat alone in a backroom puttering around with some glass vials he'd brought along. With professional care, he opened up one vial and withdrew from it a single black hair with a set of tweezers. Then, he opened the second vial containing a sludgy mudlike potion and dropped the hair into it. Instantly, the potion turned to a cerulean blue and gave off the aroma of an expensive cologne mixed with a faint dash of motor oil. As the potion completed its alteration, the door opened, and Fenrir Greyback entered the room.

"Good crowd," he said. "About fifty in all. If we get enough recruits tonight, we won't even need to do this again."

"Good," Peter said ruefully. "Because I've only got three hairs left."

* * *

Moments later, Greyback returned to the main bar and yelled for everyone's attention.

"What's this about, werewolf?" yelled a drunken Aries Flint. "What are you hiring for?"

Greyback sneered. "Not me, Flint. My boss."

There was a brief murmur of surprise from many of those present. There was only one person that Fenrir Greyback ever referred to as his "boss" – Lord Voldemort. It was not Lord Voldemort, however, that stepped into the room, though it was someone who generated nearly as much fear. His hair was as black as night, and his eyes as grey as death. And miraculously, he actually seemed  _younger and healthier_  tonight than when he went into Azkaban, though no one could have imagined what dark magic caused his rejuvenation.

"Some of you know me by reputation," Peter Pettigrew said in another man's voice from behind another man's stolen face. "But I'll introduce myself anyway. I am Sirius Black, the Dark Lord's Right Hand. And on his behalf, I've got a job for you." And through the miracle of Polyjuice, Peter Pettigrew grinned with another man's teeth.

* * *

__**Hogwarts  
The private chambers of Bathsheba Babbling  
12:45 a.m.**

The first day of the new term had been surprisingly stressful for Professor Babbling, and the worst part was that she didn't even know why. At the fifth degree of mastery (though she worked hard to conceal her skill from her co-workers), Babbling was probably the third-most skilled Occlumens at Hogwarts behind the Headmaster and Professor Snape. In some ways, she thought she was even ahead of Snape, who seemed to focus excessively on the defensive aspects of the art at the expense of its more subtle uses. Case in point: It was the practice of Bathsheba Babbling to keep her mind bifurcated at all times, so that even as she delivered her lectures, a part of her was intently studying those around her in pursuit of information and insight. Most of the time – indeed, nearly all of the time – that secondary thought process ran quietly and unobtrusively. Today, it did not. For a brief instant, just a few seconds into the Third Year Ancient Runes class, her subconscious  _shouted_  about something it had observed loudly enough to disrupt her conscious thought processes and lose her public composure for a few seconds. Nothing like it had ever happened before. And the worst part? After that brief but alarming shout, her second mind receded back into her subconscious without further incident. And since reviewing the mental record of that second mind usually required an hour at least of uninterrupted meditation and thought, she'd spent the entire day aware that there was some vital bit of information that she  _could not review._  The nature of her understanding prevented her from understanding what she had already understood.

Finally, at the end of a long day (she'd spent several hours after supper meeting with NEWT-level students to go over their individualized research projects) Babbling sat down at the desk in her private rooms to begin the process of unknotting the tangle of interwoven thoughts that were both the sword and shield of an Occlumens of her level. As part of her nightly ritual, she began by brewing a stout cup of mint tea and letting the aroma lure her into a relaxed state. She took a sip and then sat at her writing desk, placing the saucer and cup off to the side. The desk itself sat in front of a large window with a beautiful view of Black Lake and the gibbous moon above it. Bathsheba relaxed for a few moments to take in the view. Then, she picked up a self-inking quill and allowed her second mind to control her hand, using it to draw across a fresh parchment in swirling patterns as she thought about the day's events.

Surprisingly quickly, she found the source of the disturbance. It was something about the very beginning of class. Something to do with ... Harry Potter. Her hand jerked slightly, and for an instant, the swirling pattern of her hand motion was replaced with a sharp movement as she sketched out the  _Wunjo_  rune, which meant "joy" or "excitement." Her hand resumed its lazy swirling patter as she thought back on her memories of the boy. He'd done good work in class and seemed prepared for the material. She studied her memories of his face. Perfectly coiffed hair that suggested vanity, or perhaps just a burning desire to differentiate himself from his family. ( _Everyone on the faculty knew about his relations with the Potters._ ) Brilliant green eyes that flashed with remarkable intelligence. ( _And was he a practicing Occlumens? And Legilimens too? She should find a chance to discreetly talk to Blaise about that._ ) Very expensive and heavily charmed glasses. ( _A cunning mind that sought to prepare for all eventualities? Or just one in the grip of paranoia? Why not both?_ ) And on the side of his head, a jagged scar in the same general location as his more famous sibling's notorious "V" scar. ( _Caused by falling masonry or something like that during You-Know-Who's attack on Jim Potter, or so she seemed to recall. Odd that it should look so much like a lightning bolt._ )

Suddenly, her hand jerked sharply, almost painfully, and Babbling looked down to see that her second mind had drawn a large depiction of the Sowilo run that had taken up half the page.

" _Strange_ ," she thought to herself. " _I wonder what brought that on_." She closed her eyes and reviewed her memories once more but more slowly. And as she focused her attention on Harry's scar once more, her hand jerked a second time. She did not even need to open her eyes and look to know that once again, her second mind had drawn the Sowilo. " _Something about Potter's scar and the Sowilo. Something ..."_

She gasped and her eyes opened wide as the insight gripped her. " _Harry Potter's scar looks like the Sowilo rune! No, what are you saying, Bathsheba. It doesn't just_ _look like_ _the Sowilo rune! It's a_ _perfect_ _representation of Sowilo. Almost as if someone had deliberately ...!_ "

At that, Babbling's attention was suddenly diverted by a soft clattering sound. She looked down and, to her surprise, saw that her tea cup was shaking. Within seconds, however, the intensity of the vibrations grew to the point that mint tea sloshed out of the cup and onto the saucer, which was itself vibrating to the point that it had started to move slowly across the desk. The rattling of the cup and saucer was soon joined by a violent rattling from the window in front of the witch. And that sound as well was joined by yet another – a strange discordant hum that came from everywhere and nowhere and slowly increased in volume, as if it were the herald of a terrible  _something_.

Babbling looked around the room in rising panic. Then, she quickly drew a deep centering breath and closed her eyes once more. A look of serenity fell upon her face. It was a lie. Deep beneath the apparent calm of her first mind, her second mind was frantic and terrified as it desperately erased memories, threw up psychic shields, rewove mental pathways, and instilled subconscious commands that the first mind would not understand even as it carried them out. As this internal work was accomplished, Babbling's calm external visage assumed a dreamlike quality before she smiled, as if amused by her own foolishness.

"Honestly, Bathsheba," she said aloud. "You're being ridiculous. That scar looks nothing like a Sowilo or any other rune." As the witch spoke to herself, the rattling and humming slowly diminished even as she unconsciously pulled forth a clean sheet of parchment and began to write upon it.

"You're just tired and seeing things," she said amiably as all thoughts of the scar's true significance were systematically purged from her conscious mind. "It's just a scar. Probably caused by falling masonry or something like that. Nothing unusual about it at all."

While she spoke, her hands worked on their own, folding the message she had written into an envelope which she quickly sealed and addressed. Then, she rested her hands on the desk, and after a few seconds, her eyes fluttered open. She appeared relaxed, all of her former anxiety about the day washed away by her meditations. Glancing down at the table, she noticed a letter that she must have written earlier but forgotten to mail. She looked over at the clock on the wall. It was not yet one o'clock. Late, but not too late to send a letter to one of her dearest friends (and the person who had helped her get her Hogwarts position four years earlier) relating how her son had performed on his first day of class.

" _That_ _was_ _what I put in the letter, wasn't it?_ " Bathsheba thought to herself for a moment before shrugging the matter off. Whatever she'd written was undoubtedly what she'd meant to write. She put on a robe and made her way to the Owlery to post the late night letter. Then, she returned to her room and her bed. By the time she fell asleep, she'd forgotten all about the letter as completely as she'd forgotten everything else.

But her second mind remembered. And while her first mind slumbered, her second mind recounted everything it had learned to her  _third_  mind, the one that Bathsheba Babbling almost  _never_ thought about. The one that remembered all the things that she could only allow herself to know when the time was right.

* * *

The Hogwarts owl flew swiftly and delivered its message the next day while its recipient was taking lunch alone on a terrace in Marseilles. She gave the owl a treat and sent it along. After noting the unusually shaky (but still familiar) handwriting on the envelope, she opened the letter and carefully read its contents.

_S—_

_He is the one we seek, but I cannot say more. Powerful and terrible forces surround him. Tell your son to proceed with the utmost caution. Do not contact me again about these matters until I meet with you next summer. I will remember nothing of these affairs before I see you in person._

_B—_

Below the sender's initial was a quotation in Latin: " _Novissima autem inimica destrucetur mors._ " And below that was a sigil of a triangle within a circle and bisected by a vertical line. Countess Zabini read the letter three times before wadding up the paper and incinerating it with her wand. Her eyes betrayed nothing of what she thought about the message, but her hand tightly gripped the black and silver medallion hanging from her neck through the fabric of her blouse even as she watched the paper burn.


	18. The Persistence of Memory

**CHAPTER 18: The Persistence of Memory**

__**4 September 1993  
4:15 a.m.  
Hogwarts**

Luna Lovegood made not a sound as she made her way through the empty darkened hallways of Hogwarts. This was true even through she made no efforts towards stealth and even casually talked aloud to herself as she explored the castle in her own unique way: as part of a dream. She smiled as she considered the paradox.

"Am I truly soundless?" she asked herself as she floated past the doors leading to the Great Hall. "Simply because no one else can hear me while I'm dreaming? If an astral tree falls in an astral wood, does it make no sound just because no one around can hear it?" She shrugged and floated along.

To her, every night seemed a new adventure as she surveyed the castle in her dreaming form. Literally so, for she rarely remembered anything but the most important details from night to night and virtually nothing by day, despite her recent efforts to master lucid dreaming from the book Hermione had gotten her over the summer. Each night, as her dream body– her  _heliopathic_ self, she suspected – roamed the castle, she experienced a near-continuous state of  _deja vu_.

"Or maybe it's the opposite of that," she said thoughtfully. "What's the opposite of deja vu again? Jamais vu? The feeling that something is unfamiliar even though you've seen it many times? I wonder how many times I've explored the castle from top to bottom and forgotten it all when I woke up the next morning."

She shrugged again in response to the question she'd posed to herself and continued her explorations. Tonight's journey took her near the office and rooms of the new caretaker Mr. Sturgeon. Now there was an interesting specimen, so interesting that she had to fight down the impulse to pass through the door into his room (for no physical barrier in Hogwarts had barred her so far ... that she recalled anyway) and see what his nargles and wrackspurts looked when he was unguarded in his sleep.

"No," she lectured herself sternly. "It would be improper if not indecent to spy on one of the staff in their sleep. Why, he might not even be wearing clothes!" She giggled for a second but then schooled herself into a more dignified expression. Having come to grips with the fact that she was not, in fact, delusional (a fear that had plagued her for many years), the young heliopath now endeavored to appear less odd to others. She only talked about fury-flies and wrackspurts and the like to people who truly understood what she meant, but she was still working to break bad habits like reading books upside down just provoke bafflement in others because she found the nargles produced by such harmless confusions to be remarkably pretty. She assumed giggling aloud over things that only she could perceive was another such bad habit.

In any case, she knew she had nothing to fear from Malachi Sturgeon, no matter how grumpy and surly he pretended to be. She was still learning the rules for what heliopathy could tell her about the people of the physical world, but she knew perfectly well when someone was  _faking_  ill-temper. Fury-flies were, understandably, the first astral creature she learned to identify if not fully comprehend as they were the ones most dangerous to ignore. But there was no true anger in Mr. Sturgeon's snarling, only a quiet amusement and beneath that a strange persistent sadness. Oh, he had his secrets and kept them well (and Luna suspected he kept some secrets so well, he didn't even know them himself), but she was certain there was no malice in him. If nothing else, it was clear that Sturgeon and Jim Potter had a genuine fondness for one another though they sought to conceal it from everyone else for whatever reason they thought important.

Luna continued on her nightly trek through the castle's corridors until she eventually came to the staircase that led down to the Slytherin dungeons. She froze and gave out a soft gasp. For suddenly, her sense of deja vu (or jamai vu, perhaps?) was tinged with a sensation not just of familiarity but dread. Carefully, she edged forward and made her way down into the dungeons.

* * *

Several minutes later, Luna shot up in her bed gasping for air as if awakening from a terrible nightmare. Quickly, she jumped out of bed and started fumbling through her bag in the dark in search of parchment and a quill.

"Luna?" said Betsy, one of her dorm-mates, in a sleepy voice. "What are you doing?"

Distracted, Luna looked up at her fellow Second Year but then paused with her mouth still open before looking down at the parchment in her hands in confusion. The young girl exhaled loudly in exasperation before closing her bag and climbing back into bed. "I don't know, Betsy. But whatever it was, it's getting annoying."

* * *

__**5 September 1993  
Slytherin Quidditch tryouts  
**

Despite Harry's initial concerns, Quiddich tryouts went relatively smoothly. He and team captain Adrian Pucey would remain as Chasers and would be rejoined by Fourth Year Graham Montague, who was a little standoffish towards Harry but not intolerably so. He wasn't as good as Flint had been, but he seemed capable of adapting well enough to the offensive scheme Harry and Adrian had devised. Miles Bletchley was returning Keeper, and while not as resilient as Oliver Wood, he was much better than the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Keepers. Both Beater spots were open and had been filled by Gregory Goyle and, to everyone's surprise, by Millicent Bulstrode. To everyone's even greater surprise, Ginny Weasley decisively claimed the Seeker's position, handily beating out the fuming Cassius Warrington and the other contenders. Privately, Harry had expected her to win the spot, but even he was impressed when Ginny did better in her tryout than Draco had done in his the year before, though of course that was no guarantee of performance in an actual game.

Harry had been worried that Warrington's bigotries would cause dissension, as both Montague and Bletchley were friends of his and both of them also seemed somewhat scandalized by the presence of two females on the team for the first time in twenty years. Unfortunately for Warrington, he'd gotten as far as complaining loudly about not getting picked –

" _Damned if Slytherin House hasn't gone to the dogs_  
with Halfbloods and blood traitors representing us in Quidditch.  
It'll be Mudbloods on the team next!"

– when he felt a firm hand grasp him by the right shoulder and spin him around violently. He barely had a second to realize it was Millicent Bulstrode who had manhandled him before the girl took a step forward and brought her knee up forcefully into his crotch.

As the boy crumpled to the ground with a whimper that caused all other boys present to wince in sympathy, Millicent just looked down on him with disdain. "Sometimes, Muggle ways are better, I think," she said before heading off with Ginny for the girls' locker rooms without so much as a backwards glance.

* * *

__**8 September 1993  
Gryffindor Tower  
11:00 p.m.**

An exhausted Jim made it back to Gryffindor Tower just before curfew and headed up straight to bed after his three-hour-long session with Mr. Sturgeon. Up in the Third Year boys' dorm room, Ron was the only one waiting for him.

"So, how was detention?" he asked casually.

"Oh, fine," Jim said evasively.

"You look tired. And pretty much drenched with sweat. What did he have you doing all this time?"

"Uh, polishing trophies. And some ... mopping."

Ron snorted but there was no humor in it. In fact, Jim thought his best friend was angry about something. "You're that sweaty from just mopping and polishing?" Ron asked. "And while we're on the topic of working up a sweat – except for running in the morning, we haven't had time for any sparring or kata practice. You don't want to get out of practice, do you?"

"Of ... of course not," Jim replied. "It's just been hard to find time."

Ron sighed and shook his head. "Jim, I don't understand why you're lying to me about this. I  _know_  you've spent the last three hours doing martial arts training during your ' _detention_.'"

He made air-quotes around the last word. Jim swallowed nervously.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he exclaimed.

"Come on, Jim. I'm not the only one to have noticed. Padma asked me about it the other day, but I put her off. But she's way too clever not to figure it out assuming she hasn't already."

"Figure what out?" Jim said defensively. Ron began to grow indignant.

"Look, Jim, I'm dyslexic, not blind! I took me a while to recognize him at first, but just because he changed his clothes, let his hair and beard grow out, and started acting like a git, it doesn't mean I don't know perfectly well who Mr. Sturgeon really is!"

Jim did a double-take. " _Ron knows Remus's true identity? How did he break through the Fidelius?_ "

"And who  _do_ you think Mr. Sturgeon, Ron?" he asked cautiously.

Ron shook his head in genuine anger at Jim's misdirections. "Oh come on! It's obvious! He's Brother Chandra!"

Jim opened his mouth to respond but then closed it again with a surprised pop as he realized the significance of his best friend's remark.

"Huh," he finally said.

* * *

_**The next morning in the Headmaster's Office...** _

"So let me see if I understand the problem," Dumbledore said before popping a sherbet lemon into his mouth. "The secret we have put much effort into protecting with the Fidelius Charm that required six days of preparation time before casting states that ' _Malachi Sturgeon is actually the werewolf Remus Lupin_.' However, while residing in Shamballa, you adopted a new identity as ' _Brother Chandra_ ' which is not protected by the Fidelius."

"So it appears, Headmaster," Remus said with some resignation. "I suppose I should have mentioned that before you cast the spell, but it didn't occur to me that it would be relevant."

"It does raise some interesting questions." Dumbledore turned to Jim who was in the chair next to Lupin. "Did Ronald know that Brother Chandra's real name was Remus Lupin?"

"He did back in Shamballa," Jim answered. "But I don't think he remembers it now."

"Should we recast the Fidelius?" Lupin asked. Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head.

"No, I think not. At least not yet. Aside from the difficulty in dismissing and then recasting the spell, this may well provide us with a useful opportunity. Using a Fidelius in this manner is an innovative technique which we have adopted from the tactics of our enemy. This might present a chance to study that tactic and get a better feel for the spell's limitations if it turns out that he's employed it on other occasions."

"Who has?" Remus asked in confusion. "What enemy are we talking about?"

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak but was surprised to find himself unable to do so. He coughed in mild embarrassment and turned to the Boy-Who-Lived. "Er, Jim, would you be so good as to reveal to Remus the secret you learned last spring from a certain diary? I find I cannot answer any of Remus's questions about Tom Riddle until you have done so."

Jim furrowed his brow in confusion at first. "Eh? Oh, right! Um,  _Tom Riddle is actually the dark wizard called Lord Voldemort_. Or words to that effect."

Remus looked back and forth between the two. "Who's Tom Riddle?"

"As Jim just related, Tom Riddle is Voldemort's true identity. Tom was – and is – a Halfblood, the offspring of a Muggle and a squib, a fact that he concealed from his own followers through the same innovative use of the Fidelius that we have employed on your behalf. Jim and Harry learned the secret before the prior Secret Keeper was destroyed, and so both of them became the new Secret Keepers of Voldemort's hidden background, though we are still keeping that truth under wraps at the moment for ... well, for tedious political reasons. Anyway, it is possible that he has used the Fidelius to conceal other things, though he would need other wizards or witches to assist him. Perhaps by studying the thought processes of people who knew you under another identity besides ' _Remus Lupin,_ ' we can gain insights into how Tom has been using this spell over the years."

The Headmaster paused thoughtfully for a moment. "While we're on the subject, do you perchance have any other names we should know about?"

Remus grimaced. "James and Peter used to call me ... Moony. It was Sirius whom came up with it because ... well, you know."

"Ah," Dumbledore said as if his sherbet lemon had suddenly turned sour. "How very droll. I shall have to make arrangements for James and Peter to visit the school and interact with you in your Malachi Sturgeon persona to see how they react. Obviously, no such arrangements will be made for Mr. Black."

Then, Jim spoke up. "Harry knows that Remus Lupin and Brother Chandra are the same person. I wrote him last summer. But they've never met, and I haven't talked with him about Mr. Sturgeon."

Dumbledore nodded. "Very well. Jim, you may reveal to both Mr. Weasley and Miss Patil that Mr. Sturgeon is actually your former martial arts instructor Brother Chandra, who has come to Hogwarts in secret to help protect you from Sirius Black, which is technically true. And I suppose, Remus, that you are authorized to teach those three students in your martial arts techniques, assuming Mr. Weasley and Miss Patil will also wish to resume their training. I must confess that I'm somewhat interested in seeing Wu Xi Do in action. I was aware of it, but my travels never took me to Magical Asia."

"Can we also reveal the full secret to Harry?" Remus asked hopefully.

Dumbledore looked thoughtful once more. "Bring him to me later today between classes. I will at least tell him  _part_  of the secret. I am curious to see whether he can figure out the rest."

* * *

_**History of Magic  
11:30 a.m.** _

Unlike the majority of the Gryffindor-Slytherin History of Magic class (about half of whom were literally asleep in their desks), Harry Potter gave every appearance of being completely attentive. Of course, where Slytherins were concerned, appearances were often deceptive. In the next chair, Blaise Zabini, while stifling a yawn, took a sudden interest in his friend's attentiveness and leaned over to read the notes he was taking. To his surprise, Harry had drawn a line down the middle of the page. On the right side, he was taking casual notes about Professor Binns' excruciatingly boring speech about goblin revolts in the 9th century. On the left side, he was solving Arithmancy problems. Finally, Harry noticed the observation.

"What?" he asked.

Blaise leaned in more closely. "Are you Occluding right now?" he asked quietly and with some disapproval.

Harry chuckled. "Yeah, you caught me. I'm listening to Binns' droning while reviewing the highlights of my memories from yesterday's Arithmancy class. Turns out Binns isn't quite so boring when you only have to devote part of your brain to him." Then, he noticed Blaise's expression. "Is that a problem?"

Blaise glanced around to see who was listening and then hissed a response. "A problem? That you're running parallel thought-streams in class out of sheer boredom? Why should that be a problem? It's not like having two competing thought patterns is a good way to develop multiple personalities or anything."

"Three," Harry answered with a smirk. "One to take History notes. One to review Arithmancy. And one to wonder why the Headmaster wants to speak to me in his office later."

Blaise was surprised by that. "What does Dumbledore want?" he asked rather suspiciously.

"I dunno. That's why I trifurcated my mind to consider the matter, but I haven't figured it out yet. All I know is a prefect delivered the message while I was on my way to class. The Headmaster wanted to see me at the start of the lunch hour. Oh, and the password is  _Zagnuts_ , which is funny, disturbing, or both. By the way, is  _trifurcated_ a word?"

"I'm afraid to answer for fear you might try quadrifurcating next."

"Blaise, relax. I'm know the risks. And Snape's already assigned me a fake detention this Friday to go over my Occlumency and Legilimency progress. I'm sure if I show any signs of mental damage, he'll notice and take care of it."

"Fine. Just don't start talking to yourself or anything."

Harry snorted. "Why not? That might be the only way to get intelligent conversation around here."

Both boys chuckled softly at Harry's quip. And neither of them noticed their friend Hermione Granger in the back corner of the room, blissfully napping through the lecture.

* * *

_**Later in Gryffindor Tower...** _

Fred Weasley and Lee Jordan were in the Common Room about to head to lunch when George and Percy found them.

"And what do you call this then?" George asked of his twin with surprising anger. " _This_ ," at the moment, referred to Colin Creevey who stood between the two Weasley prefects covered head to toe in bright yellow canary feathers.

Fred laughed. "I call it comedy gold, Brothers Mine! How are you feeling, Colin? No side effects? You haven't laid an egg or anything?"

"Nope," Colin answered cheerfully. "Well, it's a little itchy. Also, I have double-vision and feel a little nauseous. This  _is_  gonna wear off before I have to go to class this afternoon, isn't it? I have Potions next, and I don't think Snape will find it very funny."

" _Professor_  Snape," Percy corrected absent-mindedly.

"Oh, it should wear off pretty soon, Colin m'boy." Fred frowned at the looks George and Percy were giving him. "Well, probably. If you haven't molted in an hour, we'll take you to the infirmary. On the bright side, if that happens, you'll get to  _skip Potions entirely!_  So let's stay optimistic!"

Colin's smile abruptly vanished to be replaced by a nervous grimace, while the glares directed towards Fred and Lee intensified.

"I cannot  _believe_  you gave a Canary Creme to a Second Year," George hissed. "You know we weren't planning on live testing until next summer!

At that, Percy did a double take. "Eh? What  _exactly_  does  _live testing_ mean?" He asked cautiously.

"Pretty sure it means you and me, Percy," Ron said with a laugh from across the room. He and Jim headed over to join the conversation. Meanwhile, the elder brother looked back and forth between the Twins in disappointment. George blushed. Fred smirked.

"I'd had hopes that with George becoming prefect, it might be a sign that you two were finally maturing ," Percy said ruefully. "It appears that was wishful thinking."

"Don't go blaming me, Percy," George said indignantly. "I had nothing to do with this. And even last summer when we were working on Canary Creams, I said it would be another  _year_ before it was ready." He gestured towards poor Colin, who suddenly hiccuped and burped out a few small feathers. "And I was right! He just got sick and sprouted feathers! He didn't turn into a bird at all!"

"Was that what I was supposed to do?" Colin asked excitedly.

Percy pinched his brow. "You actually volunteered to eat one of Fred's confectionary nightmares, and you didn't even ask what it did?!"

"Well, Fred and Lee called it a Canary Cream," the boy answered. "It sounded harmless."

"Yeah," George said sarcastically. "Except for the part where it was untested and didn't do what it was supposed to."

"How does  _Canary Cream_  sound harmless?" Jim asked in surprise. "Honestly, the name would imply that it's, I dunno, a  _creamed canary_  or something like that." Even Ron looked sickened at that description.

Meanwhile, Fred ignored Jim's question in favor of snarling at his twin. "You turning into a right Percy, you know that?"

"You do know I'm  _right here_ , don't you?" Percy answered. "Jim, would you do me a favor and escort Mr. Creevey to the Infirmary before he takes wing or something?"

"What about me?" Ron asked in surprise.

"I was hoping you'd stay here and help us yell at your brother for a while. Make it unanimous as it were."

"Oh no." Ron held up his hands defensively. "I'm way too young and immature for that. I'll help get Colin to Madam Pomfrey."

"Honestly, you lot," Fred said as if affronted. "The Canary Cream is perfectly harmless joke product. Just like everything else we've ever produced."

"A- _hem_!" At Fred's remark, Ron turned back towards him, stuck his tongue out, and pointed to the spot where a hole had been burned through it years before after the Twins had  _experimented_  on a normally harmless Acid Pop to " _give it more kick_." George winced again while Fred just rolled his eyes. Ron and Jim left with Colin.

"Anyway, Forge, if you were still helping me instead of prefecting around all day, maybe I'd have the creams working properly."

"Helping you?' George said incredulously. "And here I thought we were a partnership, Gred. I had no idea you were the brains all this time and I was just your  _helper._ "

"Boys," Percy interrupted, "we're getting a bit off track." But both twins ignored him.

"We  _were_  partners before you decided you were Percy Mark II, Mr.  _I'm Gonna Test Into Ancient Runes_. Don't blame me because you broke up the team so you could pretend to be a Ravenclaw."

"Now Fred," said Percy. "That's hardly fair..."

"YOU LEFT ME!" George yelled in a fury, startling the room. " _You_  were the one who decided to throw his future away on a stupid pointless gesture to save me when I didn't even need saving! You left me  _ALONE_  for the first time in our lives! So don't you go blaming me when I decided to make something of myself once you were gone!"

"Um, George?" said Percy.

"I  _KNEW IT!_ " Fred bellowed as he jumped out of his chair. "You DO think you're better than me!"

"Fred, that's ... that's not what George meant," stammered Percy with some alarm.

" _The HELL it wasn't!_ " George said as he took a step forward to get into his twin's face. "I have been  _stuck_ to you like used chewing gum our whole lives. And the first time you're not around, I suddenly get my life on track and have teachers treating me with respect. So yeah, Fred. I'm really starting to think I am better than you. Because at least I'm willing to  _try_  to be something other than a merry prankster who terrorizes not just his House-mates but his own family!"

By this point, Percy was completely speechless. He had never even  _heard_  of the Twins arguing  _at all_ , let alone witness any confrontations like this. He feared they were about to come to blows.

"You are so full of it," Fred growled. "I could out-do you in any class if I had half a mind to, and you know it."

"I'll agree you've got half a mind, Freddikins!" George answered as his face grew as red as his hair. "You really think you could out-do me? Well put up or shut up!"

"What's  _that_  supposed to mean?"

"This is our OWL year,  _Brother-of-Mine_ ," George said with an actual sneer. "You think you're better than me? I'll tell you what. You beat me on our OWLs in  _any_  class we share, and I'll drop Ancient Runes and resign as prefect. McGonagall can get someone else to do it next year. Maybe even  _you_  if you can back up all that big talk for once."

"YOU'RE ON!

"GOOD!"

With that, the Weasley Twins angrily parted in opposite directions, George out of the tower and Fred up to his room. Percy looked around the Common Room wildly, taking in the faces of all the other Gryffindors who were as shocked by the scene as he had been.

"What the hell just happened?" he said dazedly.

* * *

_**The Headmaster's Office  
Near the end of the lunch hour** _

"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore exclaimed cheerfully. "Thank you for coming. Please take a seat."

"My pleasure, sir," Harry said easily as he took the empty chair between Jim and Malachi Sturgeon.

Still hidden (after a fashion) by the Fidelius, Remus took a moment to study the boy who many years before he'd offered to take in to raise as his own. He'd seen Harry from a distance, but this was the first time he'd truly been able to observe him, and the boy's appearance was striking, mainly in how he differed from Jim despite them being identical twins. True, Harry was noticeably smaller than Jim, though apparently not nearly as much as when he'd started Hogwarts. Nevertheless, Remus knew he'd never mistake one for the other, and not just for the difference in House colors. While Jim was a bit hyperactive and still somewhat gangly despite his months of Wu Xi Do practice, Harry moved with remarkable grace for a thirteen-year-old and appeared completely calm and composed despite having been summoned unexpectedly to the Headmaster's office. Likewise, Jim's unruly hair and wire-rim glasses were nearly identical to his father's, while Harry's coif was flawless and his fashionable black-rimmed glasses somehow heightened the fierce intelligence that Remus could see in the boy's bright green eyes. He suddenly wondered if Harry was as heavily water-aspected as Jim had been fire-aspected months earlier.

" _Strange_ ," he thought to himself. " _Both the twins have green eyes like Lily's, and yet they seem different somehow._ " And then, suddenly, Remus understood – Jim's eyes were the same sparkling emerald green as Lily's were when she was laughing, while Harry's were more like the flashing vivid green of Lily's eyes when she was furious. He filed that away for future thought.

The Headmaster continued. "I have asked you here, Harry, to give you some confidential information and also to ask for your assistance with what I think can best be described as a  _magical experiment_."

Harry crooked an eyebrow, and in response, Remus tilted his head as he continued to study the boy. With that mannerism, Harry looked even more like his mother– whether the boy knew it or not, he was now imitating Lily's infamous " _dubious mistrust_ " expression.

"... certainly, Headmaster," Harry said with a smile. "I'm at your service."

Dumbledore nodded. "Good. Let me begin with a  _re-_ introduction. The man to your right, who I've previously introduced as Malachi Sturgeon, is actually Remus Lupin, a former Hogwarts student who was also a longtime friend of your family's."

Harry looked at Remus with some surprise. He knew that Jim had been studying in Shamballa under the man (and also that he and Jim had both been named after him after a fashion), but Harry had never seen a picture of him before. He wondered if Remus's presence was somehow connected with the Azkaban breakout. Then, the boy sighed internally.  _"_ _Of course_ _, it was related to Azkaban – Sirius Black, Lupin's former co-Marauder turned supposed traitor, was on the loose. Perhaps that explains why the man seems so ... twitchy._ "

And Remus was indeed clearly anxious and ill at ease, though Harry was the only person in the room unaware that it actually due to the effects the impending full moon which was only two nights away.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Lupin," Harry said aloud with a diplomatic smile.

"Likewise, Harry," the man replied. "And please, call me Remus." He stretched forth his hand. After an instant's hesitation, Harry grasped it and shook firmly while trying to ignore the sweatiness.

"From what Jim said, you were his martial arts instructor when he was in Shamballa. I suppose you're here to continue with that?"

Remus smiled. "Among other things. And ... if you're interested, I would like to teach you as well."

"Yeah, Harry!" said Jim, excitedly. "Please come! You'll love it!"

Harry's smile faltered slightly. "I ... appreciate that, Jim ... and Remus. Unfortunately, I'm taking a very heavy class load this year. Plus, there's Quidditch and the new dueling club. But I'll definitely come to watch a few sessions at least."

Then, Dumbledore spoke up. "While it is up to you whether you wish to join Remus, your brother, and some of their friends exploring the magical techniques known as  _Wu Xi Do_ , Harry, I would like to ask to make it a habit of regularly spending time with Remus regardless. It pertains to that experiment I mentioned."

"Oh?" Harry inquired.

"Yes. You see, very few people know that the Caretaker Malachi Sturgeon is actually Remus Lupin, even among people here at Hogwarts who remember Remus from his school days. This is because Remus is actually under the effects of a Fidelius not unlike the one that Voldemort used to conceal his prior life as Tom Riddle. I'd like to take the opportunity to study the effectiveness of using a Fidelius in this manner, as Tom is not one to forego using a successful trick repeatedly."

Harry nodded. Certainly, Voldemort's creation of  _at least_  four horcruxes proved that to be true.

"To that end," the Headmaster continued, "I will now tell you that the full secret pertaining to Remus Lupin that is protected by the Fidelius Charm consists of  _more_ than the mere fact that he is hiding under the false identity of Malachi Sturgeon."

Harry was nonplussed. "So what's the rest of it, sir?"

"That is what I'd like you to figure out, Harry, if you can. You have, shall we say, a preternatural gift for deduction. You now know that Malachi Sturgeon is secretly Remus Lupin. I want to see if you can figure out what  _other_  secret Malachi Sturgeon has that I have  _not_  revealed to you so far."

The boy studied Remus somewhat suspiciously for a few seconds and then glanced over to the nearby window through which the bright noonday sun was streaming. "You're not a vampire, are you?" he asked cautiously.

"Certainly not!" Remus sputtered in response.  _"How on Earth had the boy reached_ _that_ _conclusion_ ," he thought to himself. Both Jim and the Headmaster chuckled at Harry's first guess and Remus's indignant response to it.

"Okay, okay," Harry said apologetically. "Sorry ... I guess." He furrowed his brow. After a few seconds, he perked up. "Is it something to do with wolves?"

The other three looked at him practically thunderstruck, and Remus had a brief choking fit. "Why -cough - why do you ask?" he finally inquired after clearing his throat.

"Well, after I found out that I was partly named after you, I got curious and looked up your name which is, you have to admit, a bit unusual.  _Remus_  was someone from Roman mythology who was supposedly raised by a she-wolf.  _Lupin_  is from the Latin word for wolf. And your father's name  _Lyall_  is derived from Old Norse and also means wolf. So your name is basically Wolfy McWolferson. I assume that must mean ...  _something_?" Harry looked at each of the other three, baffled at their expressions of shock.

Remus and Jim continued to stare at Harry in amazement, while Dumbledore broke out into a grin and his eyes twinkled merrily. "Very good, Harry, quite good indeed. That's not  _exactly_  the answer we're looking for, but you're on the right track."

Harry nodded and closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then, he opened them and turned back to Remus. "By any chance, is either your Patronus or your animagus form a wolf?"

Again, Remus was amazed. "Well, I'm not an animagus at all, but I do have a wolf Patronus. How did you guess?"

"Ancient Runes," Harry replied. "We spent some time talking about nomenographers and how names can be magically significant. Professor Babbling mentioned that giving someone a suggestive name might influence either their Patronus or their animagus form. Was that the other part of the secret?"

"Um, sorry but no," Remus answered with a slight wince. "As I said, I  _do_  have a wolf Patronus, but that's not a part of the Secret."

"Oh," Harry said disappointedly. "Well, in that case, I'm drawing a blank."

"That's quite alright, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Even if you fail to discover the secret despite you gifts, that is only further proof of the power of the Fidelius, and we will still know more about its capabilities than when we started. Continue to think on the matter." Then, the Headmaster paused and looked vaguely concerned for a moment. "Unless, of course, you experience any headaches or other unusual symptoms that you think might be related to your inquiries into the Secret, in which case please desist at once and let me know. There is, alas, very little research about the limitations of the Fidelius, and while unlikely, it is not impossible that there might be mental side effects to actively trying to see through one. That's why I've already given you half the Secret. Do not even consider  _any_  inquiries into the Secret if you think there's any chance you might damage your mind in some way. It is, after all, your greatest resource."

"Understood, sir," Harry replied easily, and Dumbledore took him at his word. To his own surprise, he found himself occasionally grateful for the boy's Slytherin Sorting and the pragmatism that accompanied it. A similar warning to a Gryffindor like Jim not to risk his health would practically be treated as an incitement. After a few more questions and answers, Dumbledore dismissed the two boys. Harry was almost to the door when he stopped suddenly, looked around the room, and then turned to Dumbledore.

"Do the portraits know the Secret?" he asked curiously.

Dumbledore glanced around the room in surprise. He had not actually considered how the moving portraits that covered most of his office would interact with the Fidelius. "An interesting idea, Harry. I will certainly investigate that topic. I do know none of them can pass on the Secret if they do know it so long as I remain Secret Keeper."

Harry nodded, and he and Jim left the office. Dumbledore turned to Lupin.

"Well, Remus, what do you think of young Harry?"

Lupin turned back to the old man with a smile. "Honestly, I was expecting a miniature James, like Jim is in many ways. But instead, he's so much like Lily that it's almost unnerving. That piercing way he looks at you to size you up. The way he furrows his brow in thought right before some brilliant epiphany. The way his eye twitches slightly when he's fighting not to say something sarcastic in front of authority figures. He gets all of those from her even though she didn't raise him." Then, the werewolf sighed as he recalled what he'd learned of Harry's upbringing. Dumbledore chose to change the subject.

"I was particularly struck by his deductions about your name. I'd never given it much thought, but  _was_  your name selected for nomenographic reasons?"

"Yes. It had been ... a tradition of sorts in the Lupin family to have a nomenographer select the names of newborns, from back in the days before we emigrated from France in the 17th century. Father never knew why, but he insisted in following the tradition when I was born." The werewolf's expression grew sadder. "My mother blamed my father for that. She was never anything less than loving to me even after I was bitten, but once Father explained to her how nomenography worked, she was furious. She felt certain that by naming me Remus Lupin, they had effectively  _fated me_  to become a werewolf. That they'd made it my  _destiny_. It drove a wedge between them that lasted until the day she died."

Dumbledore said nothing. He knew all too well how Remus had suffered as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. And also to what extent some of that suffering was the result of Dumbledore's own choices.

* * *

_**10 September 1993  
Harry's "Detention" with Snape** _

On Friday afternoon, Harry had his first Occlumency/Legilimency lesson with Professor Snape himself as opposed to "Mr. X." He was pleased to learn that despite Blaise's fears, he was in no current danger of developing multiple personalities or any other psychological flaws as a result of maintaining multiple streams of thought for extended periods. In fact, Snape assured him that maintaining a secondary thought-stream at all times was perfectly safe, though opening a  _third_  stream was  _adventurous_  and not something to be done for extended periods of time.

"The true danger to such compartmentalization comes not from maintaining multiple thought-streams simultaneously," he said. "Rather, the risk comes from opening up multiple channels that  _are not aware of one another._ "

Harry was taken aback. "Why would somebody do that?"

"Several potential reasons. An Occlumens spends considerable time in the presence of one or more Legilimens while undercover or otherwise playing a role. Or an Occlumens wishes to commit a crime or some other illicit act while retaining no conscious knowledge of what he has done. It is for the latter reason that the testimony of known Occlumens is often disregarded in legal proceedings. For one sufficiently skilled in the art, it is a trivial matter to remember events differently depending on whether you are speaking to a collaborator or an investigator. Regardless, while ' _nesting personalities_ ' are relatively safe if one is cautious and self-aware, improperly maintained thought-streams can result in the Occlumens coming to genuinely believe that the lies he tells himself are true. In the worst case scenario, the Occlumens may shift between one personality and another uncontrollably since personalities, ultimately, are but the summation of the memories which form them."

"Uh-huh," said Harry as he absorbed that. "So having two thought-streams is generally safe as long as neither of them is set up to believe lies. How many thought-streams are possible at once?"

"I would recommend against exceeding three, and in any case, I can't imagine why you would need to think about more than three different things at once no matter how boring you find Professor Binns's lectures to be. After three, the strain causes a progressively worsening migraine. Von Mises claimed to have maintained five separate thought-streams at once, but the pain rendered him unconscious after just a few minutes. He concluded that there was likely no value in further research in that direction that would outweigh the probable health risks. Now, if you are quite finished discussing what is for the most part an Occlumency parlor trick, we can move on to the Legilimency portion of your detention."

Harry nodded and gripped his wand tightly as he peered into Snape's eyes. " _ **LEGILIMENS,**_ " he intoned before hurling his meager psychic gifts against Snape's far stronger defenses. After fifteen minutes of exhausting effort, he had a relatively clear image of a young man's bedroom. The walls were adorned with Tutshill Tornados posters. On the bed was a comforter in Hufflepuff colors, and a Hufflepuff scarf hung from the bedpost. There was a tabby cat on the bed licking its paws. Suddenly, the cat jumped up to hiss angrily at Harry, its fur instantly standing on end. Startled, the boy was thrust back out into his own mind at once.

"Not bad, Potter. You are approaching  _Acceptable._ "

"Just Acceptable, Professor Snape? I was in your mind for quite a few minutes this time before the cat got me."

"Yes, but what did you do with that time, Potter? You know the cat is an Occlumency defensive trap and that you would have only a brief period to actually learn anything. And yet, all you did was stand around psychically gawking. Admittedly, your stealth has improved, but that avails you nothing if you don't learn anything useful before your inevitable discovery."

Harry frowned. "Well, honestly, I don't see what there was to learn. It was some Hufflepuff kid's bedroom."

The Potions Master sneered, which surprised Harry. Snape had not sneered at him in years. "I take it back, Potter. Poor bordering on Dreadful, if you are so foolish as to think that was just ' _some Hufflepuff kid's bedroom_.' You should know better than that."

The boy thought for a moment. "Oh! That wasn't just a bedroom. That was your memory palace!"

Snape scoffed. "Of course not, Potter. That was Hubert Turnipseed's memory palace!"

"... who?" Harry asked in confusion.

"Hubert Turnipseed is a fictitious Hufflepuff whose false memory palace Mr. X used to cloak his own memory palace. Which, in turn, was but another false memory palace used to conceal  _my true_  memory palace."

The boy stared at his teacher. "Isn't that  _exactly_  the sort of thing you  _just told me_  might lead to multiple personalities?"

The man snorted contemptuously. "The Turnipseed and Mr. X personae remain completely dormant until I activate them as part of an Legilimency tutoring session. There is no danger of dissociation when all three of my active personae agree on which of us is  _real_."

Harry gaped as he tried to process that. He was also mildly annoyed to realize that he intuitively knew what dissociation and personae meant even though he was sure he'd never heard the terms before. After Luna had pointed out that little quirk of his, he'd become increasingly perturbed every time he understood some obscure terminology without knowing where he'd learned it. Harry briefly thought about sharing Luna's observations about his unnatural vocabulary skills with Snape but decided against it. For some reason, he didn't want any single person to know  _all_  the ways he was ... weird.

" _Not_ _freakish_ _,_ " he thought quickly. " _Just ... weird._ "

After another twenty minutes, the lesson concluded with Snape looking through his calendar to pick a date in October for Harry's next detention. Harry stood to leave but hesitated.

"Was there something else, Mr. Potter?" Snape's tone made it perfectly clear that he wanted the answer to be ' _no_.'

"Just ... one thing, sir. I hesitate to ask and I wouldn't if I didn't have a very good reason, one which I'm afraid I can't disclose. But it really is important or I wouldn't trouble you with ..."

"Stop bleating like a Hufflepuff, Potter. What is it?"

Harry coughed into his hand. "It was my understanding, Professor Snape, that you were in the same Hogwarts year as a friend of James Potter's. A man called ... Remus Lupin."

It was always interesting to Harry that a man like Snape who was capable of perfectly concealing his emotions so often wouldn't bother to do so when the only witnesses were school children and other faculty members, as the man's flaring nostrils and flashing eyes could attest.

"I ...  _recall_  the man. What of him?"

Harry paused, while trying to figure out how to proceed without Snape  _realizing_ that Harry was trying to figure out how to proceed. While his natural Legilimency made him remarkably persuasive, it didn't work nearly as well on people like Snape and Moody who were aware of it and thus could see through it.

"My brother met Mr. Lupin last summer in Shamballa. Studied under him for a time, in fact. Jim mentioned that Mr. Lupin suffers from some sort of obscure medical condition but was evasive about what it was. I was wondering if you knew anything about it. Or for that matter, anything else about Mr. Lupin that a non-Gryffindor in Jim's situation would find it useful to know."

Snape seemed to glare at Harry with enough fire in his eyes to  _burn_  his way through the boy's mind, but Harry never felt a touch of Legilimency. After several seconds, Snape finally spoke.

"I ... am aware of Lupin's condition but am unable to speak freely about it. If the Other Potter were my brother – and I actually cared about him as a human being – I would strongly discourage him from studying under Lupin. Or indeed spending any time with him. But I can say nothing more than that."

Harry nodded in understanding. "Thank you, sir." He turned and headed for the door when Snape called out to him.

"Will you be joining Professor Scrimgeour's Patronus class, Mr. Potter?"

The boy paused at the door. "I was planning to, sir."

Snape stared at him meaningfully. "It might behoove you to review the passage from your Defense text that covers Dementors. I believe you will find it on ...  _page 394_."

Harry nodded again. "I'll review that information at once, sir. Thank you."

Snape had already sat back down at his desk and seemed to be ignoring the boy. Harry turned and left.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Harry was back in his room flipping through the DADA book. He quickly found page 394 and spent several minutes studying it intently, but for the life of him, he could find nothing that seemed relevant to Remus Lupin or his mysterious Secret. Just a lengthy entry about Dementors and a checklist for how to identify werewolves. He shut the book in frustration and returned it to his backpack. Then, after a few moments thought, he laid down on his bed and retrieved the two-way communication mirror from the side table drawer. He tapped it twice and said Sirius's name. Soon, the image of a yawning Sirius Black appeared in the frame.

"Hey, Harry. What's up?" Sirius said in a bleary voice that strongly indicated he had been sound asleep.

"I'm sorry to bother you this late, but I need to ask you a question."

"Of course, Harry. Ask away."

"Okay, now before I ask, I want to say that I  _wouldn't_  be asking you if it weren't important. And I promise you that I won't spread it around whatever the answer is."

"Harry...?"

"I figure you might think it's none of my business, but it's something the Headmaster asked me to do, and it may at some point be helpful against You-Know-Who."

" _Harry_ ," Sirius interrupted firmly. "What do you want to know?"

Harry bit his bottom lip and then asked. "I know that Remus Lupin has a big secret of some kind. And I'm pretty sure you know what it is. Can you tell me?"

Sirius's eyes widened. He hesitated. "This is something Dumbledore wants you to find out? But he already know Moony's biggest secret. That is, unless there's another not even I know about."

"I know Dumbledore already knows it. But he wants to see if I can figure it out on my own. I can't say anything more than that. I can only ask you to trust me."

Sirius nodded. "I do, Harry. I do." He looked around as if to make sure no one was listening, least of all his younger brother who would  _not_  react well to finding out this  _particular_ secret. "Okay, here it is. Remus Lupin is a werewolf."

Harry blinked several times. "Okay," he finally said.

"Is that it?" Sirius asked in surprise. "Any questions?"

"No," Harry replied. "That's all I needed to talk about. Get plenty of rest, Sirius. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Okay, Harry," Sirius said uncertainly. Harry deactivated the mirror and then returned it to his nightstand drawer. Then, he laid back in his bed, his brow furrowed in disappointment.

" _Damn_ ," he thought, " _I was_ _sure_ _Sirius would know what Remus Lupin's secret was. But he couldn't help me figure it out anymore than Snape could._ " Tired from his busy week, Harry shrugged, turned out the lights, and quickly fell asleep.

* * *

_**11 September 1993  
4:00 p.m. – The Hogwarts Dueling Club** _

"Good afternoon, students," said Professor Scrimgeour. "Thank you all who decided to sacrifice a lovely Saturday afternoon in favor of spending your time in a dark dingy classroom learning how to hex one another for fun and profit and listening to me grumble at you."

Scrimgeour surveyed the assembled students. There were only about forty students in all, mostly Gryffindors and Slytherins. A few Hufflepuffs but surprisingly few Ravenclaws, despite the involvement of their Head of House. " _All in all not a spectacular start_ ," he thought. He'd been told that the imbecile who preceded him as DADA instructor had gotten twice as many the year before, but then, Lockhart had apparently offered free food, which presumably helped to draw a crowd. Standing alongside Scrimgeour were Professor Flitwick, "graduate student" Marcus Flint, the Head Boy and Girl, and several prefects. Professor Snape was somewhat conspicuous by his absence. Although he had agreed to help with the Dueling Club, he was unable to attend the organizational meeting, supposedly because he was " _brewing_ " today. Scrimgeour wondered how often that would end up being the ex-Death Eater's excuse for avoiding the former Chief Auror's presence.

Although the number of participants was less than Scrimgeour had expected (which was not a bad thing in his eye seeing as how he was not overly interested in competitive dueling anyway), the professor was pleased to note the presence of several students in which he'd become  _interested_. Both Potter boys and their respective coteries. The No-Name boy who was keeping a noticeable distance from anyone likely to be hostile to him. (He and Harry Potter had also avoided each other, but the patterns of their movements informed Scrimgeour that the two had choreographed the whole thing to conceal their continued friendship.) The Weasley Twins who, curiously, were avoiding one another.

"The purpose of this student organization is to provide formal training for competitive dueling for any of you who wish to pursue that career option. It is  _not_  for learning how to more efficiently hex and curse your classmates in the hallways. It is  _not_  for learning how to be a better criminal or worse a future Death Eater. It is  _not even_ for preparing for the Auror Academy. And above all, it is not for learning any Dark magic, however anyone chooses to define it. In a few moments, you will be divided up by Year, which is how future sessions will be organized. As you may have guessed , First Years are not allowed to participate since, at this point, they know no spells useful for any constructive purpose, let alone combat. The rest of you will be divided into groups A, B, C and D. Group A will consist of Second and Third Years and will meet for two hours from 7-9 on every other Tuesday beginning next week. Group B will consist of Fourth and Fifth Years and will meet for two hours on the  _other_ Tuesday beginning week after next. Groups C and D will consist of Sixth and Seventh years respectively and will meet on alternating Wednesdays from 7-9."

"The week before the Christmas break, we will have a tournament within each group, and students who perform well enough will be offered the chance to move into a higher bracket. The ultimate objective is to prepare at least a few of you to participate in the European Student League Dueling Circuit next summer. That circuit has three levels of competition open to students aged 12-16: novice class, open class, and junior world class. For those of you who are graduating – and I suppose any younger students who prove to be genuine prodigies – your training will be preparation for entering the European Professional League Circuit, which is broken up into amateur class, open class, and professional world class, though should anyone choose to enter the professional circuit, you will be required to start in the amateur class and work your way up. Our hope is that at least some of you will demonstrate the natural skill and dedication to enter competition at an age- and skill-appropriate level without embarrassing your school and humiliating your families. A tall order, I know, but hope springs eternal."

"With that, I will turn the floor over to Professor Flitwick, who will explain all the tedious ' _rules_ ' and other things that I can't be buggered to care about. Professor Flitwick?" Without even waiting for the Charms professor to reply, Scrimgeour hobbled over to take a seat. For his part, Flitwick clicked his tongue at his coworker's use of the word  _buggered_  before addressing the group.

"Thank you, Professor Scrimgeour for that ...  _effusive_ introduction. For the remainder of this introductory session, we will cover those aspects of competitive dueling that are common to all levels. Before you leave, if you have not already done so, please pick up one of the parchment sheets stacked on the table by the door. It will list all the spells legal for the various European League brackets. Please review them carefully as using any spell in a duel not approved for that level of competition or lower is grounds for automatic disqualification."

As the diminutive professor spoke, Harry glanced over the parchment he'd picked up when he'd entered. Already, he knew every spell on the novice list and nearly all the ones on the open class list. He wondered if it was arrogant to think he might be ready to compete in open class by the following summer. " _Probably so_ ," he thought, " _if I didn't have an open class_ _professional_   _duelist back at 12 Grimmauld Place to help train me._ "

"We will begin with an introduction to dueling etiquette," Flitwick continued. "Another area where failure to properly follow the rules can lead to a loss of points if not disqualification. In the European Circuit, you will most likely be dueling under French rules or Bulgarian rules. While there are some nuances, the primary differences between the two lie in the size and shape of the dueling area and in the rituals that precede the start of the actual duel. In all types of competitive duels, the area in which dueling occurs is bounded by a special type of competition ward known as a Certamen Ward to prevent outsiders from being harmed. Under French rules, that area is relatively small, a rectangular area about fifteen feet wide and forty feet long. Competitors meet in the center, raise their wands in salute to one another, and then march back to their opposite sides and stand at ease while awaiting the instruction to begin. For those of you who observed the single session of the dueling club overseen last year by Professor Lockhart before it was disrupted by ... some unpleasantness, it was run under French rules. In Bulgarian rules, the dueling area is a circle about 100 feet in diameter. Duelists salute one another from opposite sides, and then slip directly into a dueling stance while awaiting the duel's commencement, usually in the form of a handkerchief or something similar that is levitated above the center of the circle and then allowed to drift down to the ground as a signal to begin."

Scrimgeour interrupted. "I've always suspected the Bulgarians preferred such rules because they never wanted to turn their back on an opponent. A sensible attitude, if you ask me."

"Thank you, Professor Scrimgeour, for you generous insights," Flitwick said with some asperity. "Now then, students, we will begin by teaching you proper dueling stances. Please assemble yourselves into a block, and I will review the proper bowing technique followed by several of the more common stances."

With some murmuring, the students arranged themselves into the desired block and awaited instruction, while the DADA professor entertained himself by observing how quickly the  _interesting_  students absorbed the day's lessons.

* * *

_**Later, a few hours before sunset ...** _

For about the fiftieth time in the last hour, Remus glanced at the clock on the wall of his office. He'd grown increasingly anxious as the day had progressed despite his best efforts to meditate and maintain a spiritual balance. Back in Shamballa, he usually spent several days in meditation to prepare for the full moon, but that was not an option here while he was posing as the school's caretaker and thus couldn't simply disappear into his quarters for days at a time. He jumped slightly at a soft knock on the door. Dumbledore entered bearing a steaming goblet containing what he'd referred to as the Wolfsbane Potion, the last great innovation of the legendary Potions Master Damocles Belby.

"Headmaster," Remus said in surprise. "You didn't have to come here. I was waiting for you to send word to come to your office."

"That's quite alright, my boy," he said as he put the goblet on the desk in front of his former student. "To be perfectly honest, the Caretaker's Office is nearer both the Infirmary and the Whomping Willow if something goes wrong with the potion. For that same reason, I will be accompanying you to the Shrieking Shack and remaining through your transformation."

Remus looked horrified and also somewhat embarrassed. "Albus, there's no need for that."

"I disagree, Remus. I owe it to you to oversee this process, for your peace of mind and my own. As per your instructions, I have had Hagrid acquire some fresh game from the Forbidden Forest, and house elves have already delivered it to the Shack."

Remus looked down at the steaming goblet with something like shame on his face. "Still ... it's been a long time since anyone has seen me ... like that."

"I know, Remus. I know. But if someone must, who would be better than me?" Dumbledore looked down at the goblet as well. "After all, it's nothing I haven't seen before."

* * *

__**12 September 1993  
4:00 p.m.  
Patronus Lessons**

The following day, a group of students (and, in fact, a great many of the same students) met in the same room for an introduction to the Patronus Charm. Scrimgeour's introductory speech was even briefer today before he handed over the group to Marcus Flint, who swallowed almost painfully before addressing the group. Although he was taking one class (7th Year NEWTs Transfiguration under McGonagall) plus private Potions lessons from a student tutor, he wasn't actually considered a student. More to the point, he wasn't technically a Slytherin in any sense other than "Slytherin alumnus." At night, he slept in his room at the Three Broomsticks. He also ate breakfast there, but while he ate lunch and dinner in the Great Hall, Professor Scrimgeour had instructed him to move around regularly to the other Houses' tables so that he could answer any Patronus-related questions while obviating concerns about pro-Slytherin bias. Or at least that was the official reason. Unofficially, Scrimgeour had bluntly told him that Slytherin House had a "troubled" reputation as a result of the Wizarding War, so someone of his "less than stellar social standing" should take the opportunity to make new and hopefully influential friends.

After lengthy discussions with Scrimgeour and also every staff member who he knew could cast the Charm, Marcus decided that the best approach would be to follow the path set by Gilderoy Lockhart with Team Protector, though with an accelerated schedule. That is, they would begin with carefully monitored Boggart Banishing spells to get used to maintaining contradictory emotional states (i.e. laughing at something normally terrifying) and other increasingly complex esoteric spells before moving on to the the Patronus which has some of the most demanding mental requirements of any esoteric spell - that the caster maintain a picture of his happiest memory while under fear- and despair-inducing conditions. While many of the students were unhappy at the thought of facing a boggart, Marcus reassured them that no one would be allowed to observe anyone else's fears – he gave Jim Potter a brief glare at one point – and he stated that he would be willing to swear an oath of secrecy about anything he witnessed if asked.

Flitwick and Scrimgeour both expressed surprise at that policy. Apparently, the "traditional" approach to dealing with boggarts was simply to have several people approach it together but from different angles. If there were too many people in close proximity, a boggart would become confused as to which form to take and thus be more vulnerable to the Riddikulus. Apparently, Lockhart had gone with one-on-one boggart training instead because the goal of the lesson was to master esoteric requirements rather than simply to banish the creature as efficiently as possible.

After further discussion about the Patronus Charm (and a display of Ironside that the students found suitably impressive), Marcus set up a meeting schedule for the group over the next several weeks. Then, the students drifted out of the room. Theo No-Name was the first out the door, having already learned the hard way to exit quickly so that he could get ahead of anyone who might otherwise lay in wait for him. As they were leaving, Harry noticed that Jim's expression seemed troubled, so he went over to talk with his brother.

"What's up, Jim?" he asked. "You seem down for some reason. I thought you'd be excited about learning the Patronus."

He shrugged. "I am ... about that part of it. It's the boggart that has me worried to be honest."

"Come on. You're a Gryffindor. I can't imagine a boggart that's too scary for you to worry about."

"It's not that it's ... scary. But ... Harry, I've  _seen_  my boggart. Last year, back when ... you know."

Harry nodded. He assumed " _you know_ " was Jim's oblique way of referring to that time he ended up hospitalized from boggart exposure due to a prank by Jim that went wrong. But he was unaware until now that Jim had taken the opportunity to meet the boggart himself.

"Honestly, it's not even scary," Jim continued. "But it is ...  _embarrassing_. In a " _this could end up on the front page of the Daily Prophet_ " sort of way."

Intrigued, Harry popped his wand and cast a Muffliato. "What was it?" he asked.

Jim looked around, as if nervous someone could hear through the privacy charm. "It was ... a succession of friends and family all telling me how much I sucked at being the Boy-Who-Lived and that Voldemort was going to come back and kill everyone and it would be my fault."

For a brief second, Harry almost laughed at the idea of Jim's boggart fear being nothing but insecurity made manifest. But then he caught himself. Over the last year, he'd been forced to appreciate the burdens that Jim carried as the Boy-Who-Lived. For someone who was expected to be the savior of his entire nation if not the world, insecurity and lack of self-esteem might well be more problematic than actual tangible dangers. Harry considered the problem.

"This was last fall when you encountered the boggart?" he asked. Jim nodded solemnly. "Okay, you've got an advantage none of the others have. It turns out that the school's caretaker is secretly your psychic arts guru. And I'd bet good money that he also knows how to handle boggarts. Get him to help you prepare after hours for the next meeting. And who knows? Maybe your boggart has changed since then. You've been through a lot. You've faced another version of Voldemort. You even killed his pet basilisk. Maybe you've gotten over that particular fear, at least enough for it to not trigger a boggart."

Jim nodded and smiled. "Thanks Harry!" Harry dispelled the privacy charm, and the two brothers rejoined their respective social groups and left the room. Rufus Scrimgeour watched the Potter brothers depart together, thankful not for the first time that years earlier, he had learned to read lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: Some clarification about Remus's Fidelius may be helpful to readers going forward. The Secret is "Malachi Sturgeon is actually the werewolf Remus Lupin." The fact that Remus Lupin is a werewolf by itself is a secret but not actually a Secret. Ditto the fact that Remus Lupin is also known as Brother Chandra.
> 
> A. The people who know all of those facts include Remus himself, Dumbledore, and Jim.
> 
> B. The people who know that Malachi Sturgeon is Brother Chandra but not the other facts about him include Ron and soon Padma. Anyone who is told by any means that Malachi is also known as Chandra will be able to retain the knowledge.
> 
> C. The people who only know that Malachi Sturgeon is actually Remus Lupin (aka Brother Chandra) but nothing else about him consists of just Harry at the moment. He is presently incapable of knowing that Sturgeon/Lupin is a werewolf or retaining that knowledge if told by someone other than Dumbledore.
> 
> D. Everyone who ever knew that Remus Lupin was a werewolf still knows it. They're just incapable of knowing that the person who calls himself Malachi Sturgeon is really Remus Lupin even though he looks exactly like Remus Lupin with shaggy hair and a beard. Technically, it would have been possible to make everyone forget that Remus had ever been a werewolf, but it would have made the Fidelius much more difficult to cast, even for Dumbledore.
> 
> E. The Fidelius is weird.
> 
> AN2: "Jamais vu" is a real thing. You can trigger it in yourself by picking a common word like "soap" or "bird" and trying to write it as often and as quickly as you can for a minute. By the end, most people will suddenly think that the word is strange-looking and somehow unfamiliar, and a significant number of people will actually become briefly convinced that it's not a real word at all. Comedian Steven Wright's "Vuja De," on the other hand is fictitious but still amusing.


	19. Prelude (Unspeakable Bode)

**Chapter [** _**REDACTED** _ **]: Broderick Bode and the Chime of Calamity**

_**[** _ _**REDACTED** _ __**] 1993  
The Early Warning Office  
Department of Mysteries**

Unspeakable 029 sat alone in the Early Warning office with his feet propped on the desk. It was his lunch break, and he alternated between bites of the somewhat greasy Cornish pasty his wife had prepared and working on the  _Daily Prophet's_  crossword puzzle. At the moment, he was stumped on 7-Down ( _Eight letters. Ends with y. "A disastrous event"_ ). Crossword puzzles were all he had at the moment to alleviate his boredom, which was odd because one might expect the Department of Mysteries to be the least boring part of the Ministry of Magic.

Nine times out of ten that expectation would be correct, but unfortunately, Unspeakable 029 – Broderick Bode when not on the job – had drawn the short straw and was stuck in the 10% boring part – the very most boring part, in fact. It was the policy of the Unspeakables to regularly (and randomly) rotate its membership among its various departmental duties so that every Unspeakable would have some knowledge of everything the secretive department did. For the past four years, he'd been lucky and drawn some exciting or at least interesting jobs. Admittedly, some of them were also  _terrifying_  jobs, but fear was a luxury Unspeakables could seldom afford and was less seldom tolerated.

Alas, Bode's luck had run out, and for the foreseeable future, he was assigned to "Early Warning Duty." The job consisted of Bode (and a few other Unspeakables who worked in shifts) sitting in this small office day after day ready to alert the department if any of the fifty-seven chimes hanging on the office walls sounded for any reason. Many of them were warnings of fairly innocuous events, and the most banal simply duplicated the warning systems of other departments as backups. For example, Chime #36 sounded with some regularity as it monitored incidents of accidental magic in public places. There was, of course, an entire department dedicated to monitoring such incidents, but the Unspeakables quietly made a point of double-checking their work. It would not do for some poor Muggleborn to become an Obscurial because a Ministry bureaucrat had been lax in his duties. And so the Unspeakables kept a duplicate file on every bit of accidental magic that occurred in Britain and followed up if anything went  _weird,_ things going  _weird_  being an essential element of an Unspeakable's job description.

Other chimes were less  _weird_  and more  _nightmarish_. Chime #16 would alert the Unspeakables if the inhabitants of the Brain Room were in danger of rousing themselves from slumber to once more plot against the Ministry. Chime #43 would activate if there were any disturbances emanating from a certain pond in the Forest of Dean that was normally concealed by five wards and a dozen Notice-Me-Nots and Muggle-Repelling Charms. The pond was deemed Unspeakable because it was not full of water but rather what appeared to be a vast quantity of human blood. And also because from time to time,  _things_  emerged from it, though the Unspeakables had not been called upon to sterilize the area in many years. Chime #9, meanwhile, would let the Unspeakables know if someone or something came  _out_  of the Veil of Death. As far as anyone knew, that was utterly impossible, but better safe than sorry.

Of course, the  _most_  worrisome chime in the Early Warning Office was also the oldest and the largest. Chime #1 was one of the original seven chimes that had been placed here by the druids untold centuries ago, back when there was no Early Warning Office with a comfy chair, a battered desk, and oak-paneled walls. Long the Romans came, saw, and conquered, this chamber had been nothing but a rough-hewn cavern, and like most of what later became the Department of Mysteries, it had been carved out of the living rock by the forgotten magics of ancient pre-Roman wizards deep below what would one day become Londinium and later London. The Cavern of Seven Dooms, they'd supposedly called this particular chamber. Happily, Chime #1 had never sounded, not in all the time the Department of Mysteries had guarded this chamber after transfiguring it into an unassuming office (and later adding more chimes for things and places that must always be monitored and for events that must never occur).

Personally, Bode thought that Chime #1 would never sound. After all, Stonehenge and its sister sites were as protected against disruption and sabotage by all the power that the Unspeakables could bring to bear, and that power was considerable. And even then, if it came down to it, the Department of Mysteries still had records of the practices and rites of their druid forerunners. If Chime #1 ever sounded and the Old Gods of Britannia returned, the Unspeakables knew perfectly well how to properly fill and deploy a Wicker Man.

Bode took another bite of his pasty as he continued his struggle with 7-Down. Then, he very nearly choked at the sound of a loud sonorous  _bong_. After coughing for a few seconds, he took a swig of tea and then rose to determine which of the chimes had interrupted his lunch. With the second and third  _bongs_ , he realized that the affected chime was quite near the front of the room, and for a brief instant of panic, he thought it had been Chime #1 and his overconfident musings had mocked Fate and brought doom upon them all. But no, Chime #1 was still silent and immobile. Those-Who-Wait-In-Darkness were waiting still.

His sense of relief soon ended, however, when he realized that the ringing emanated from the nearby Chime #4. Unlike Chime #1, the fourth chime  _did_ sound with some regularity, but typically no more than once or twice a century. Bode was not old enough to remember its last activation, but naturally, he'd read the file and been suitably horrified. He'd also held out hope that he would grow old and die before Chime #4 activated again, but apparently that hope had been in vain. The wizard swallowed deeply and touched Chime #4 with his wand to silence it. Then, he returned to his desk to log the time of its activation before pulling a small mirror from a drawer and tapping it three times. When Unspeakable 001 appeared within the frame, Bode gave his report.

"This is Unspeakable 029. The fourth chime has just sounded this day at twenty-seven minutes past the hour. Please have the Cryptohedron checked immediately for signs of activity. Message ends."

"Message received and forwarded to appropriate staff."

The Head Unspeakable ended the communication without inquiring further of Bode. Unsurprising since, after reporting the probable activation of an Omega-Level artifact, his job as the Early Warning monitor was complete. Whatever happened next would be the responsibility of others. He wasn't sure whether to be disappointed to be out of the loop or relieved to be free of the responsibility. Bode returned the mirror to the drawer and looked back down at the crossword puzzle before barking out a surprised laugh.

" _Of course_ ," he thought. " _Eight letters. Ends with y. 'A disastrous event.' How appropriate for the times."_ He picked up his pen and filled in the blanks with precise penmanship that barely showed any signs of a shaky hand.

_C-A-L-A-M-I-T-Y._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: This chapter was supposed to replace the prior chapter 84 which was nothing but an Author's Note. Then, the prior chapter 84 got deleted completely on accident which shifted all the prior chapters up one. So now, it's the new chapter 101. Chronologically, however, the events of this chapter happened during the summer of 1993. Sorry about any confusion.


	20. Hogsmeade (pt 1)

**CHAPTER 19: Dementors, Divinations, and a Day in Hogsmeade**

_**19 September 1993  
Hogwarts** _

Over the next few weeks, Hogwarts settled into a routine that accommodated the presence of the nearby Dementors. In Ancient Runes, Professor Babbling continued her painstaking analysis of the Elder Futhark runes, while in Arithmancy, Professor Vector was even more exhaustive in her lectures on the importance of the number 7. Meanwhile in Muggle Studies, Lily Potter announced that the class would be spending some time exploring Muggle pop culture through the time-tested Mugglish teaching tool known as  _book reports_. To facilitate that, she placed several dozen paperback books popular among young Muggle readers in the school library for her students to read and give a report on by the end of term. To Hermione's surprise, she'd already read most of them and had actually brought copies of a few of them in her trunk for light reading.

Although fewer students spent time out on the grounds compared to years past, Quidditch practices continued uninterrupted despite the frightful observers, and during the Slytherin practices, Harry was pleased to see that Ginny, Greg, and Millie were all integrating into the team's dynamic smoothly. That said, he did have some concerns about the Dementors continually hovering over the nearby Forbidden Forest. Or more accurately  _one particular_  Dementor who (unlike his fellows) seemed intensely focused on the Slytherins' activities. Harry wasn't sure, and admittedly had no way to  _be_  sure. But some strange instinct, perhaps related to his Legilimency, told him that the Dementor who had drawn his attention was the same one that had tried to attack Harry and Jim on the Hogwarts Express.

"[ _I/We] kNoooW [your] FaAaAaAaCE [_ _ **DIE! DIE! DIE!**_ _]_

Harry shuddered at the recollection and wondered if Jim's memories of what had happened on the train were as intense. Then, he frowned as he recalled seeing first hand how vivid Jim's impressions of the Dementor had been. He knew all to well what effect that experience had on his brother.

* * *

_**Earlier that week ...** _

With some reluctance, Harry had agreed to attend a few of the Wu Xi Do classes that Malachi Sturgeon (who went by the name "Brother Chandra" when teaching those not aware of his Secret) would be providing for Jim, Ron, and Padma. To Harry's own surprise, after he mentioned the classes to his friends, Theo No-Name announced an interest in attending. The boy had decided to be proactive in dealing with any conflicts with students affected by the Ultimate Sanction, and he'd further decided that would include learning an obscure magical technique that also doubled as a form of self-defense. Thus far, no one had attempted any real physical harm (besides the occasional Tripping Jinx in the halls when he couldn't tell who was responsible). If nothing else, from what the two Slytherins had learned, Wu Xi Do would probably help with ducking and dodging.

And to Harry's own surprise, he and Theo both excelled in their first training session, almost to the point of making Jim and Ron mildly jealous. But then, Chandra reminded the boys that they were focusing on water-aspected Wu Xi Do  _specifically_  for a therapeutic reason: correcting Jim's own fire-water imbalance. Since Harry and Theo actually  _were_  Slytherins, it made sense that they would both adapt more readily to what he was teaching. That explanation mollified Jim, even more so when Brother Chandra decided to change things up with a few basic earth-aspected moves with which  _none_ of the students were familiar let alone naturally proficient. After all, none of them was anything close to a Hufflepuff.

It was after the third session that Jim quietly asked Harry to remain behind. After sending Ron, Theo, and Padma on their way, the two boys joined Remus (a name they were now free to use since those who didn't know any part of the Secret had departed). Just as Harry had suggested, Remus had acquired custody of the boggart that would be used in future Patronus classes. And judging by the steamer trunk it was hiding in, it appeared to be the same boggart that both Potter boys had encountered a year before. Harry had agreed to witness Jim's attempt to banish his boggart, but he had one question.

"Why me? Not that I don't want to help if you need me, but I figured you'd want Ron here."

Jim looked wistfully at the door. "Ron's my best friend. I'd trust him with my life. But ... I don't know what my boggart looks like. I'm worried that knowing about my innermost fears might ... upset him."

Harry nodded in understanding. "The last time, it was people you knew mocking you. And now you're worried that it might manifest as Ron saying something hurtful."

"Basically," the other boy as he glanced nervously at the trunk.

"Jim," Remus asked, "are you ready?"

Jim nodded and moved closer to the trunk as Remus stepped away. As the older man cast the spell to open the trunk, Jim steeled himself to cast the Riddikulus even as he wondered which of his friends and family would be the first to appear and accuse him of being a fraud as the Boy-Who-Lived. To his great and terrible surprise, it was none of them. His boggart fear had indeed changed in the previous year.

Into a Dementor.

Jim had been prepared for cruel mockery, not for a boggart in the shape of a Dementor and certainly not for one that seemed to have a Dementor's powers. Despite his preparation, terror washed over the boy in a wave, along with an unearthly coldness and a compete loss of happiness. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a woman's scream, and he began to swoon. Then, the boggart-Dementor floated towards him ... and spoke.

[ _I/We] kNoooW [your] FaAaAaAaCE [_ _ **DIE! DIE! DIE!**_ _]_

As Jim started to faint, Harry rushed forward with his own wand drawn. But before he could cast the Banishing Charm, the boggart reacted to his closer presence. The creature's pseudo-flesh flowed like mercury until image of the Dementor was replaced by that of the rotting corpse of Vernon Dursley, once again pointing a maggot-ridden finger at Harry in accusation.

" _Murderer! Freak!_ "

Fortunately, Harry was quite prepared for this particular illusion, and while boggart-fear could be potent, it was nothing compared to the nightmares produced by one of Voldemort's horcruxes. " _ **RIDDIKULUS!**_ " Harry slashed his wand with confidence, and in response, the Vernon-boggart kicked its legs up into the air, stuck both feet into its mouth, and started slurping greedily. In an instant, the creature's entire body had been sucked inside until Vernon's leering mouth was all that remained before it too disappeared with a pop. The lid of the trunk slammed shut.

Remus, who had also rushed forward to banish the boggart, was at once surprised, pleased, and confused at Harry's actions. Surprised and pleased at his swift and effective spellcasting, but confused as to the form of his boggart. Luckily, he was close enough to catch Jim before the boy fell to the floor.

"Well done, Harry," Remus said as he lowered Jim to the ground. Harry knelt on the other side of Jim with a worried expression. "Your boggart. If you don't mind me asking..."

"It was Vernon Dursley," Harry said without taking his eyes off his brother. "He was my guardian – sort of – up until his death last October. Heart attack."

Remus nodded but did not ask the next obvious question: If it was a heart attack, then why did Harry feel so guilty about it that his boggart accused him of murder. He hoped to have a chance to talk to the boy later, as it was clear that staying with the Dursleys had affected him even more deeply than he'd feared.

Meanwhile, Harry gently shook Jim's shoulder. "Come on, Little Brother, time to wake up. The Boy-Who-Lived can't go fainting every time a Dementor shows up and says  _boo_! What will your adoring public think?"

As Jim came to his senses, he ignored Harry's jibes and frowned. "Who was screaming?" he asked. "And why did that Dementor say he knows my face?"

Harry's eyes widened. "The boggart-Dementor said that? The real Dementor on the train said that to me! I thought you'd already passed out by then."

"I had," Jim said with a shake of his head. "I don't remember that Dementor saying anything." He frowned. "Why would a Dementor say that he knows our faces?"

"Strange," said Remus as he helped the boy up. "To be honest, the fact that it spoke  _at all_  is remarkable. I've never heard of Dementors communicating verbally with anyone other than the staff at Azkaban."

"Hmph," Harry said with a mischievous smirk. "I bet it recognizes  _you_  as the Boy-Who-Lived and just got confused because we're twins. Honestly, Jim, is there  _nowhere_  your fanclub doesn't reach?"

"Hardy-har-har," Jim said rolling his eyes.

After making sure that Jim was okay and feeding both brothers chocolate bars, Remus sent them to bed. He also made a point of reassuring Jim that there was nothing embarrassing about his boggart fear. "If anything, it's a sign of your remarkable courage. It seems the only thing you fear is ... fear itself."

"Pfft. Gryffindors," Harry said with an exaggerated sigh.

* * *

As September passed into October, Harry, like most of his peers, settled into a steady if hectic routine. He had a full class schedule that included two demanding electives, Quidditch practice several days a week, and the dueling club. It also included the Patronus class, and while Harry felt no closer to a true corporeal Patronus, Theo, Ron, and Hermione (among others) had the beginnings of a mist Patronus though it still eluded an increasingly frustrated Jim. Finally, there were bi-weekly meetings for S.P.A.M. in which he helped Hermione guide the club towards researching ways to weaken or break mind control effects like the Sanction, along with research on how the British wizarding government actually worked (both politically and magically). Their biggest obstacles were Anthony Goldstein and Sue Li, both of whom seemed far more interested in figuring out how to make Muggle televisions and computers work in magical environments than in getting drawn into what might well become a socio-political conflict.

After a few more training sessions, Harry chose to drop out of Brother Chandra's martial arts classes simply due to lack of time. And also, to be honest, due to a lack of interest. He understood that there was a place and time for hand-to-hand combat and that the specific kind of hand-to-hand combat Chandra was offering was practically  _designed_  for Slytherins. But the heart of the matter was that to Harry's Slytherin personality, resorting to physical combat (even magical in nature) meant that you had already lost the battle of wands. There was, after all, a reason he stubbornly spent five to ten minutes every night vainly trying to summon his wand to his hand from across a room: Harry honestly felt that if a wizard was ever caught without a wand at the ready, he pretty much deserved whatever happened to him.

But while Harry made his apologies to a somewhat disappointed Remus Lupin, Theo No-Name actually chose to continue. As he explained to Harry and Blaise, whatever the practical value of Wu Xi Do, it couldn't possibly hurt to cultivate a relationship with the Boy-Who-Lived, one that might lead people who were on the fence about the whole "No-Name" thing to think more positively of him. Also, since Theo and Harry had agreed not to maintain a public friendship, it would have reflected poorly on Harry if the other Slytherins had learned he was taking lessons in some exotic magical technique from the Caretaker while in the company of  _both_  the Outcast and the Boy-Who-Lived. Since Theo actually was interested in the lessons Brother Chandra offered, it made sense for him to be the one to continue them while Harry withdrew.

* * *

_**8 October 1993  
** _

__**Hogsmeade  
The Tonks Clinic and Residence  
3:00 a.m.**

Ted and Andromeda both awoke instantly at the sensation of their home's wards being breached a split second before they registered the sound of the glass shattering downstairs. Ted was the first one to jump out of bed and grab his wand, but Andi was close behind.

"Stay here," he said automatically. "I'll check it out." Then, he flinched at the look his wife gave him.

" _Stay here?_ " she spat. "I'll ignore the inherent chauvinism in that comment and simply remind you that  _I_  was the one who took an O on my DADA NEWT!"

Ted gulped and then cracked a smile. "Well, you know what they say: There's no vinism like chauvinism!"

At that, Andi punched him in the arm before stalking out of the bedroom, her husband close behind. In the second floor hallway, they met up with Nymphadora who also seemed ready for battle. Andi told Dora to go back to her room, a sentiment that was taken even less well than Ted's earlier comment to Andi, and after a brief whispered argument, all three crept downstairs.

There were no signs of an intruder, but there was a smashed window, and on the floor below it sat a brick with a message tied to it. Iris, the house elf, stood on tip-toe to peer out another window, but she reported with some anger that whoever threw the brick was long gone. With a flick of Nymphadora's wand, the message was summoned from the brick and levitated in front of the three.

"NO OUTCASTS IN HOG'S MEED!" it said in crude block letters.

Andi scoffed even as she cast a Reparo to fix the broken window. "It takes a special kind of imbecile to misspell Hogsmeade in a hate letter urging us to banish Theo from it."

Her daughter, the auror-in-training, was more thoughtful. "An imbecile. Or maybe just someone who's not from around here."

After checking the perimeter and casting some stronger protective wards, the Tonkses agreed to contact the DMLE in the morning. Then, they returned to bed, not noticing as they went that Iris stayed behind to study the brick with an expression perhaps best described as a mixture of fear, sadness, and resignation.

* * *

_**Meanwhile ...** _

On the other side of Hogsmeade, Fenrir Greyback gestured with his wand. Well,  _he_ considered it his wand. It had picked him, after all, when he claimed it from the corpse of the prior owner who he'd killed and devoured years before. In response to the werewolf's movements, a thick black liquid drifted up out of a cannister onto the wall of Quality Quidditch Supplies to spell out "OUTCAST! GET OUT OF HOGSMEADE!" in graffiti. Fenrir had already left such messages on four other buildings around town. According to Pettigrew, the potions added to the black paint would make it extremely difficult to remove the graffiti. More importantly, they would have the special benefit of putting  _ideas_  into the minds of villagers who saw the messages. Or if not  _ideas_  then at least  _predispositions._  It probably wouldn't affect people naturally immune to the Ultimate Sanction, but it would certainly heighten the normal reaction among those who were affected. Not that Fenris cared about the Sanction one way or the other, but in this instance, it was certainly convenient for their plans.

According to the  _Daily Quibbler_ , this same potion was sometimes added to the ink used in the  _Daily Prophet_  to cause its readers to consider it more a more credible news source. Neither Fenrir nor Peter knew whether that conspiracy theory was true or not (probably not given Xeno Lovegood's reputation), but they were both amused at the irony in Peter's current plan. If everything worked right, the same Ultimate Sanction that Tiberius Nott used as a vindictive punishment for his younger son would also aid in snatching his future bride right out of his clutches during their upcoming meeting in Hogsmeade.

There was a soft pop as Stavros, a member of Fenrir's pack, apparated to his side, his mission to the Tonks Clinic completed.

"It's done," he said before taking in Fenrir's work with a furrowed brow. "Is that how you spell  _Hogsmeade_?"

Fenrir glared at Stavros, who blanched at the werewolf's expression. It was unwise to be flippant to one's alpha the night before the full moon, after all. Fenrir packed up the rest of the magical paint he'd been using and apparated back to their base with Stavros following a second later.

* * *

_**Somewhere, Sometime...** _

_The little boy had been lost in the woods for longer than he could remember, and as the night got colder, he'd ended up huddled under a tree sobbing quietly and shivering both from the cold and from fear. For he knew that there was a monster after him, a great and terrible monster that would devour him whole if it caught him. Then, the boy gasped in terror as a demonic howl erupted from farther into the woods. It was some distance away, but closer than the last time he'd heard it just a few minutes before. The boy began to weep piteously. He was alone and cold and the monster would be here soon. Then, as that thought rippled through his terrified mind, the boy heard another sound much closer. He turned and saw that the bushes just a few feet away were rustling as some thing pushed its way through them. And the distant howl that had so frightened the boy was now replaced by a different animal sound. A low, hungry growl._

_The bushes parted, and the boy screamed._

* * *

__**10 October 1993  
The Shrieking Shack, Hogsmeade  
7:20 a.m.**

Remus Lupin awoke with a loud gasp to find himself nude on the dusty wooden floor of the Shrieking Shack, then he rose slowly and gingerly while trying to get his bearings. The Wolfsbane Potion had allowed him to retain most of his human intellect during his transformations, but it did very little for the lingering pain of having all the bones in his body reshape themselves and then do so again eight hours later, nor did it allow him many clear memories of the prior night's events. On the bright side, there were no new scars on his body, though he did suffer the sensation of something gamey stuck between his teeth.

" _Ah yes_ ," he recalled. " _There had been a deer carcass here last night, hadn't there. Hagrid's doing._ " He barely had time to notice the gory remains lying on the floor across the room when a cheerful voice made him jump in surprise.

"Good morning!" said Dumbledore brightly. "And how are you feeling today, Remus?"

Remus looked around and saw the older man sitting behind him at a small breakfast table that had not been there the night before. There was a covered silver tray on the table, but even from across the room, Remus's acute senses could detect eggs, juice and bacon.

"Neither as tired nor as sore as normal, Headmaster. Though perhaps a bit embarrassed to be seen in the altogether by a professor. Last time, you weren't here when I woke up the next day."

"Yes, I had a early morning Wizengamot committee meeting the day after your September transformation. Besides, as I've already said, it's nothing I haven't seen before." For some reason, that sentiment made Remus blush even further. "But permit me to make a concession to your modesty."

With that, Dumbledore waved his wand, and a cloth napkin from the table flew across the room, expanding and changing as it went until it landed at Remus's side in the form of a terrycloth bathrobe. Remus quickly donned the robe before joining Albus at the table. Despite eating most of a deer the night before, he was every bit as hungry as he normally was on the morning after a transformation. It had been speculated that both transformations drew on the body's life energies to an unhealthy degree, thus instilling a ravenous hunger after each. But at that thought, Remus frowned at the memory of  _who_  had made that speculation to him.

After removing the lid, the werewolf prepared a plate for himself of eggs and fruit while steadfastly ignoring the bacon. Deep inside, the Beast whined petulantly, but Remus ignored it as usual. It had devoured a whole deer the night before without his consent, so it could go hungry for a while.

"So how much do you recall from last night?" Albus asked.

Remus shrugged. "Not much. I remember some periods of activity, but not all. And even for what I do remember, everything felt sluggish, as though I had been drugged. Which, in a sense, I suppose I had been." He looked into Dumbledore's eyes. "How long were you here, Albus?"

"Most of the night," he replied. "Fortuitously, this full moon fell on a Saturday night, so I felt I could stay up and observe events this time. I have nothing pressing for this particular Sunday, so I'll be returning to Hogwarts soon to get some sleep. I suggest you do likewise."

Remus nodded but then furrowed his brow. "Did we ... talk at some point?"

"We did indeed, after a fashion. Unsurprisingly, you were neither as gregarious nor as erudite as you normally are – the vocal cords and mouth cavity of a werewolf were not meant for human speech – but I could tell that you were you. A bit ill-tempered and surly and with a diminished intellect, but it was unquestionably a sane and perfectly non-violent Remus Lupin whose eyes looked back into my own."

"If you don't mind, I should like to see your memories of that later," Remus said.

"Of course. But later this week after you're fully recovered." Dumbledore looked at him curiously. "The werewolf fell asleep just before dawn, and you transformed soon after. I allowed you to sleep some more, but you seemed to be having a nightmare." He paused. "Was it the same one?"

"Yes," Remus said ruefully. "After all these years, still the exact same dream. Little Remus John Lupin is lost in the woods and terrified when a werewolf howls in the distance and then some beast jumps out of the brambles at me. Then, I wake up. And after these years, I still don't know what it means."

"It is related to the circumstances under which you were bitten, surely."

He shrugged. "I suppose. I just don't understand the context. Fenrir Greyback attacked and bit me while I was asleep in my bedroom at my parents' house. I can't recall any incidents from my childhood when I was lost in the woods and pursued by a werewolf or any other animal. Also, I don't remember ever having the dream until sometime after I turned 13."

"Perhaps it has some symbolic significance."

"Perhaps," Remus said before digging back into his eggs. "But after all these years, I still have no clue what it could mean."

Dumbledore had no answers either, so he said nothing in reply. Although he did reach over to help himself to the bacon that the vegetarian werewolf had eschewed.

* * *

_**15 October 1993  
Divination** _

Immediately after taking roll, Professor Trelawney looked up through her coke-bottle glasses and noticed that Lavender Brown was waving her arm excitedly.

"Yes, child?" she inquired.

Lavender stood and moved to where she could see everyone. "Before we start the class , Professor, I have an announcement to make. On the first day of Divination, you warned me that something I was dreading would happen around this time. I didn't know what that might mean, so I asked Hermione Granger. And she was able to interpret the prophecy and warn me that my pet rabbit, Binky, might be in danger. So I took her advice and asked my mother to have a house elf keep a close eye on Binky.  _Today at breakfast_ , I received a message from her saying that yesterday Binky had gotten out of his cage somehow, but the house elf  _rescued him_  right as  _a fox was closing in!_ "

At that, about half the class (including the instructor) gasped in credulous wonderment at the announcement, while the other half was merely bemused by it. Hermione, who had been trying to stifle a yawn since entering the hot stuffy room, suddenly perked up and looked at Lavender through wide eyes.

"And so," Lavender continued, "I just wanted to thank  _both of you_. If it hadn't been for the wisdom of not one but  _two_   _seers_ , poor Binky would have been  _eaten._ "

With that, Lavender started applauding both Trelawney and Hermione, and everyone soon joined in with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The sound of the clapping was just loud enough to cover up what Hermione muttered through painfully clenched teeth. " _It was the_ _last thing_ _on her bloody list!_ "

Professor Trelawney, meanwhile, seemed to be in a state of rapture as she turned towards Hermione. "Oh my child! I  _knew_  that the Fates had touched you and that your Third Eye was on the cusp of opening! Please, child, have you any more insights for us?"

Every eye turned to Hermione Granger, who blushed under the unexpected attention. Then, for just a second, she narrowed her eyes towards Lavender towards whom she was suddenly feeling ill-disposed. She looked down at the table and addressed the room in a portentous tone.

"I ... I suppose it is proper for me to share my ... my gift. Or whatever. For the last week or so, I've been under a great deal of stress, in part due to lack of sleep."

"Lavender and I have both noticed," said Parvati with condescending sympathy.

"Well the thing is ... I've been having ...  _dreams_." She fought down the urge to laugh both at how theatrically she said the last word and also at the reactions it caused among her more credulous classmates.

"What sort of dreams?" Trelawney asked in awe.

"Well," Hermione continued. "The thing of it is ... I don't really remember them very well when I wake up. I just recall this strange sense of ...  _doom_."

"Doom?!" Lavender squeaked.

"Yes, Lavender.  _Doom_  ... for  _you_. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the Hogsmeade weekend that's coming up at the end of the month. I feel very strongly that if you go to Hogsmeade, something ...  _dreadful_ will happen to you."

The other Gryffindor's eyes widened. "But ... but... it's the first Hogsmeade weekend! I've been waiting two years to go to Hogsmeade! I can't just ..."

" _Dooooooom_ ," Hermione said in a commanding spooky voice.

Lavender went pale and swallowed painfully before sitting back down. The effect was even more pronounced on Professor Trelawney. "Oh my heavens! Yes, yes, Miss Brown, I urge you to take Seer Granger's advice to heart! Why, now that she has pointed it out, I too can see clearly the web of misfortune that surrounds you. You  _must not_  go to Hogsmeade at the end of this month!"

Then, she turned to address the entire class. "Clearly, this has been an eventful and stressful class session for one day, and I want all of you to meditate on what you have seen here and ponder on how each of you can open your own Third Eye as Seer Granger has. You are all dismissed."

Neville looked at his watch in confusion. "But ... we've only been in class for three minutes..."

"Shhh!" Hermione hissed at him in a fierce whisper. "This means we've got a free period before our next class! Just go with it!"

* * *

_**29 October 1993  
From a letter to Theo No-Name ...** _

_My Dearest Theo,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I know that your first Hogsmeade weekend approaches, and Ted, Nymphadora and I are all looking forward to seeing you so you can tell us all about how your year has been over lunch. However, I would be remise if I did not warn you of certain disturbing developments. For the past several weeks, offensive graffiti attacking "the Outcast" and demanding that you not return to Hogsmeade._

_As you know, I was a Black long before I became a Tonks, and while I am no longer a part of that family, I am still Black enough to never bow to intimidation. Not only are you still welcome in our home, but I_ _insist_ _you come visit us this Saturday. We all miss you, especially Nymphadora who has come to view you as something like a "little brother." But I did want you to be aware of what has been happening in our little village so you would not be alarmed if you happened to come across any of this nonsense without forewarning._

_Until Saturday,_

_Andromeda Tonks_

* * *

Theo read the letter twice before putting it away. It had come during dinner, but he waited until afterwards to read it. There had been a brief flurry of interest in the question of "who would ever bother sending an owl to  _him?_ " and he did not wish to draw any further attention from his house-mates. Instead, he waited until he was outside the door of the empty classroom where Mr. Sturgeon (or whatever his name was supposed to be) taught self-defense to a select group of students. He wasn't yet certain that he was gaining any  _occult_  benefits from Wu Xi Do, but it did seem to help with anxiety a bit. And also with dodging hexes which he had been forced to do twice this week. As he returned the letter to his bag, he noticed Jim and Ron coming up. To his surprise, Hermione was with them.

"Decided to join us in self-defense, Hermione?" he asked with some surprise.

"Sorry, but I don't have enough hours in the day as it is," she answered. "Ron and I have been wanting to talk to you, but you skipped last night's SPAM meeting – I still can't believe we're calling it that – and we haven't had any classes with you today. We were wondering if you'll be visiting the Tonkses this weekend."

Theo thought back to the warning letter he'd just read, and his eyes narrowed slightly. "Why do you ask?

Hermione nudged Ron who spoke up with some mild embarrassment. "Well, the thing is ... I've been looking into becoming a Healer, but I've never even really met one before other than Madam Pomfrey. Hermione suggested that since there's a medical clinic in Hogsmeade, it might be a good idea to meet them and find out what the job's actually like. And if maybe they might want someone to help around the place next summer."

"Yes," Hermione said excitedly. "Magical healing sounds fascinating to me as well. I'd love to come along if only to meet the Tonkses. I've heard so much about them!"

Theo nodded somewhat guardedly. "Well, I'll be going over there for lunch on Saturday and will stay a few hours. I don't suppose they'd mind if you came in and introduced yourselves."

"Wonderful! I'm so excited!" Hermione exclaimed. Ron was not quite as openly enthusiastic, but he still seemed pleased.

"I'd love to join you all," said Jim, "but I'll be with my parents and my Uncle Pete most of the day. Maybe some other time?"

Theo nodded, and then Jim and Ron headed into the classroom. Hermione was just about to leave when Theo called out to her.

"So, just between us," Theo asked somewhat suspiciously. "Was it Ron's idea to meet with the Tonkses? Or your's?"

"... what do you mean?" Hermione answered after a brief pause.

"I mean, Ron has known I've been living with them for a while, but he's never expressed any interest in meeting them before now. Meanwhile, you're the one who seems to have taken me on as her ' _special project_ ' for the year. I was wondering if you'd put the idea into his head."

She blushed "Well, I ... I wouldn't say I  _put the idea_  there. I did mention it as a possibility..."

"Hermione!  _I_   _don't_   _need bodyguards_  just to get from Hogwarts to the Tonks Clinic!"

"Theo," she replied. "We're not going as ... bodyguards or anything like that. Ron really does want to meet some actual healers. And so do I."

"Uh-huh," Theo answered, still somewhat angry. "Well alright. You can come. But as my friends, not as ... as people who've taken pity on me. I don't want or need that. Which, by the way, is why I'm taking a break from SPAM. I figure if I stay there much longer, you and Anthony will start ...  _experimenting_  on me or something."

Hermione flinched. "I'm ... sorry you feel that way, Theo. I guess I'll be going now." She turned quickly and fled down the hallway.

Theo looked anguished for a moment and almost called after her. While he was somewhat frustrated by Hermione's over-protectiveness, he knew it was out of kindness and that she didn't deserve for him to hurt her feelings. But she was already gone. Theo closed his eyes, counted to ten, and then went into the classroom, hoping to work out his frustrations by punching imaginary opponents. In his head, they all looked like Tiberius Nott.

* * *

__**31 October 1993  
Hogsmeade  
3:00 a.m.**

After some angry letters from Andromeda Tonks to the DMLE, a night-time security patrol was added to Hogsmeade, though it consisted of DMLE generaly security personnel rather than actual aurors. Their numbers were small though, and after a few nights, the pattern of their patrols was easy to predict. If anyone on the security detail observed a rat scurrying down the edge of the street in the direction of the Tonks Clinic, none of them thought anything of it.

Minutes later, Peter Pettigrew was satisfied that he had plenty of time before the patrol circled back around. With a soft pop, the rat turned back into a man. From his pocket, Peter produced several sheets of parchment covered in runes. Very special runes that he'd been provided years before by very special friends that he'd been saving for a very special occasion. He crept up to the edge of the Tonkses ward line, secured one of the parchments to the ground with a Permanent Sticking Charm, and then cast a Disillusionment Charm to hide it. This was perhaps the most dangerous part of his plan. Pettigrew did not expect any of the locals to see through the concealing spells, but he knew Mad-Eye Moody had taken up residence in Hogsmeade for some reason. If the paranoid auror with the roving magical eye happened to come this way before the  _festivities_  started and saw the parchments, the whole plan might be put into jeopardy.

Peter set that concern aside as he added three more warding parchments around the clinic at each of the cardinal directions. He was a Gryffindor through and through. Big risks meant big rewards.

* * *

__**31 October 1993  
A small meeting room in the Slytherin dungeons  
8:15 a.m.**

"Are you ready for this?"

Amy nodded, her calm exterior almost concealing the glimmer of worry in her eyes. Harry gave her a reassuring smile. Greg stood behind her, popping his knuckles nervously and in general completely failing to show the same degree of poise as his adopted little sister. Harry continued.

"I'll be leaving for Hogsmeade just after breakfast. Blaise and I will be in the Three Broomsticks by eleven o'clock and remain there through your meeting. Greg will bring you to Hogsmeade at quarter to noon. You will meet the Goyles and Nott in the common area of the Three Broomsticks and then retire to a private dining room upstairs. I will remain below and wait until you come out again."

She nodded again, and he put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

"Remember, Amy. Based on everything we know,  _nothing_  is going to happen up there. Nott just wants to meet with you. Under British wizarding marriage laws, the two of you must meet face to face at least three times in the year before the marriage, and this is just number one. And each meeting has to be chaperoned."

She flinched at that, and Harry knew why. The "chaperones" would be Mr. and Mrs. Goyle, which under the circumstances might be worse than no chaperone at all. Still, his assessment seemed accurate. There was no reason to think that Nott wanted anything more out of this meeting than to tick off one of the legal requirements for a wizarding marriage contract involving an Ancient and Noble family.

" _But_  – if anything happens that is unexpected or frightens you, shoot off some fireworks and I'll be there as soon as I can." Harry squeezed her shoulder. "I know this is frightening for you." He looked up into Greg's eyes. "For  _both_  of you. But we will all get through this if we face our fears without giving in to them. Just for today – find your inner Gryffindor."

Amy actually laughed at that, though Greg still looked vaguely nauseous.

"And you're  _sure_  you can stop the wedding?" he asked nervously.

"Yes," Harry said simply. "But I've got to do it when the time is right." He smiled confidently. "And when I do, it will  _amaze_  you how easy it was."

Whether he truly was as confident as he sounded or was just faking it, Harry's words had the desired effect. Well, mostly.

"Just to be clear though," Greg said. "If you  _don't_  get Amy out of this, at a  _minimum_ , I'm gonna punch you in the face  _really hard._ "

Harry was unfazed. "Well of course! That goes without saying."

At nine o'clock, students began passing through the main doors of Hogwarts while Caretaker Sturgeon dutifully took down their names and reminded them to return by 6:00 p.m. or they would receive detention for tardiness. The Third Years were the last to leave and were escorted en masse by several prefects who had been assigned to show them around the small village for the first hour before letting them loose to explore on their own. The group made their collective way down the long pathway from the school to the village. The day was unseasonably cold and gloomy, and despite their best efforts to ignore it, a few of them couldn't help looking over to the cloud of dementors that hung over the Forbidden Forest.

Once in Hogsmeade, the prefects began pointing out various features of interest. Harry had already seen everything worth seeing under Mad-Eye Moody's guidance and so was rather bored by the tour, but he was pleased to note the presence of several aurors all over town as added security for the day. Unfortunately for the prefects, all order soon broke down when the tour carried them past Quality Quidditch Supplies. A sign hanging from the top of the building proudly announced the arrival of a sample broom from the recently established Firebolt Company, specifically the prototype ' _Firebolt Seeker_ ' that had been custom-ordered by the Bulgarian National Team for use by their latest recruit, international Quidditch phenom Victor Krum. A life-sized cutout of the 16-year-old Krum stood in the window next to special broom, only eight of which had been produced so far. The price tag left even Harry shocked.

"How can a Firebolt possibly cost that much more than a Nimbus 2001?" he asked the store manager incredulously.

"Well, it's got that new Redistributed Gravity Charm, you see!" the salesman replied jovially. "It's a new Charm what the company founder Randolph Spudmore's come up with. 'E's got a patent on it, so no other broom company can use it even if'n they figure it out themselves!"

"Redistributed ... Gravity ... Charm?" Harry asked cautiously. "What does that do?"

"Well, ya'see, gravity is what makes things want to fall to the ground when ya drops 'em. It's somethin' Muggles come up with."

"Yes," the boy interrupted in annoyance. "I'm  _aware_ of gravity, thank you."

"Hmmf," said the salesman, miffed at the interruption. "Well then, I reckon you know that a normal broom has to fight against gravity while in flight, especially while acceleratin'. But not the Firebolt, though! While the Redistributed Gravity Charm is active, ' _down_ ' always refers ta wherever the broomstick is pointed. No drag on acceleration a'tall. It'll make pulling off a Wronsky Feint as easy as pulling up on the stick."

Harry's eyebrows shot up. If the salesman was explaining the Charm properly, then the Firebolt Company would have the edge over every other broom company in Europe for years to come. He made a mental note to send an owl to Artie to find out if he was invested in Firebolt Co. ... or any of its competitors. While most of his peers were content to simply ogle the new broom, Harry spent the next fifteen minutes talking with the salesman about its specifications.

Later, around 11:00, Harry's group split up, with Harry and his brother making their way to the Three Broomsticks for an early lunch with the Potters. Since school had begun, Harry had "enjoyed" three luncheons with Lily, Jim, and Snape on school grounds. That is to say, he'd spent three periods with his mother and brother that were only mildly excruciating as he made casual small talk about his schoolwork without mentioning anything he considered overly personal (or worse, illegal) all while ignoring the grinding of Snape's teeth. Today, however, James would be joining the group for the school's first Hogsmeade weekend. And, Harry supposed, so that the Chief Auror could be seen overseeing security and boosting morale.

In a way, James's presence was convenient, as it gave Snape an excuse to leave Hogwarts and Hogmeade entirely, thus giving him cover for his secret journey to Longbottom Manor for another round of interrogating the LeStranges. Unfortunately, both Artie and Hestia were unable to make it today, but luckily, they were able to retain the services of a chaperone for Harry whose qualifications James could not deny.

"Good morning, Mr. Moody," Harry said warmly to his tutor whose intimidating presence today also allowed him to meet with his parents without causing any legal complications.

"Potter," Mad-Eye Moody said gruffly. "Or  _Potters_ , I guess I should say." While Harry was quite familiar with Moody (almost on a first name basis, in fact), Jim had never formally met the legendary ex-auror before and was suitably awestruck. Lily was polite and inviting, but James was visibly uncomfortable with his former mentor's presence. A few minutes later, the Three Broomsticks' fireplace flared up, and last two lunch guests stepped through. One, to Harry's surprise, was Minister Fudge. The other was not a surprise, but neither was it pleasing to him.

"Good afternoon all!" Peter Pettigrew said cheerfully. "I hope I haven't missed any excitement." He grinned at the Potters and Moody. Neither Mad-Eye nor Harry smiled back.

* * *

__**A second-story storage room  
atop Ceridwen's Cauldron Shop (across the street from the Tonks Clinic)  
11:45 a.m.**

"There's the Outcast," muttered Scabior. "And he ain't alone."

Scabior and the men with him were waiting for Fenrir to transmit the order to commence the attack. They were all antsy at this point. Scabior, like several of his gang, were former short-term Azkaban inmates. They weren't good at taking orders in the best of times, even from someone as intimidating as Fenrir Greyback, and while none of them admitted it, the thought of that many Dementors barely a mile a way was terrifying. But they'd been hired by Sirius Black himself (or so they thought), and he was someone they feared ever more than Greyback.

"Who's that with him?" asked Janos, the one Greyback had sent to lead the attack. Scabior nearly sneered at the werewolf but caught himself. However loathsome werewolves might be in his eyes, only a fool insulted one to his face.

Scabior shrugged instead. "Two dumb kids who chose the wrong boy to make friends with," he said as, down below, Theo No-Name knocked on the door to the Tonks Clinic, Ron and Hermione at his side. All of them were oblivious to the hidden curse wards that they unwittingly walked past on their way into the building.

* * *

_**The Leaky Cauldron  
11:58 a.m.** _

Lunch with the Potters was surprisingly not horrible, even with Pettigrew on hand. While Harry still disliked the man intensely (and with good reason), he grudgingly came to hold a certain respect for his self-discipline and skill at misdirection. As the boy's Legilimency skills had grown from intuitive leaps into deliberate analyses, Harry had gotten quite good at reading people. And yet, had he not already known that the man was a Death Eater, he'd have never guessed it from their casual conversation. Finally, after half an hour, Harry figured out the trick.

" _He makes a point of trying to act charming and likeable and deliberately failing_ ," Harry realized. " _And because he fails to be charming and likeable, people think they see through him and find Lord Potter's ruthless fixer behind the false image. And they never guess that the ruthless fixer is just_ _another_ _false image to hide the back-stabbing Death Eater that represents his true self._ "

It reminded Harry of his recent conversation with Snape about using Occlumency to establish separate personalities that could work in tandem, and to his surprise, Harry deduced that Peter must be an Occlumens himself. That realization, along with his disappointment with how under-seasoned Madam Rosmerta's famous Shepherd's Pie was were his two biggest takeaways of the luncheon.

For his part, Fudge wasn't nearly as unctuous as Harry had expected. The Minister had been polite to him – as befitted the Potter Heir – and had at least feigned interest in Harry at least as much as in the Boy-Who-Lived. Indeed, Harry was mildly impressed that Fudge seemed to know the first name of nearly every adult witch and wizard in the Three Broomsticks. Nevertheless, it was obvious that Jim was the real reason for his presence. No less than four reporters had shown up to document the Boy-Who-Lived's first Hogsmeade Weekend (which Harry thought was ridiculous overkill for such a minor occasion), and several pictures were taken of the Minister, the Chief Auror, and the Chosen One all standing together and smiling insincerely. Moody plainly found the whole scene distasteful, but Harry was surprised at the look of smoldering anger Lily continually directed towards both James and Minister Fudge when no one else's attention was on her.

Just before noon, the group finished their meal, with Minister Fudge magnanimously paying for it all before heading back to London via floo. The Potters, Jim, and Pettigrew rose for a walk around Hogsmeade, but Harry and Moody begged off with Harry explaining that he was waiting for some friends who hadn't arrived yet. As the first group left the inn, Peter stopped on the porch and knelt down to tie his shoe. He did not look up to see if the man hidden under a Disillusionment Charm in the alley across the street saw his signal. He'd known the man for years, after all, and so Peter had complete faith in Fenrir Greyback's professionalism.

Seconds later, the signal had been passed to Scabior and Janos on the other side of town. Janos pulled a small case out of his pocket and opened it. Inside were two vials, one containing a foul-looking potion and the other a single black hair. He carefully dropped the hair into the potion, and after it changed color, he threw his head back and downed it in a single gulp. As the Polyjuice Potion took effect, Janos smiled cruelly. Their employer wanted a big distraction.

You could hardly get more distracting than Sirius Black himself leading an attack on Hogsmeade.


	21. Hogsmeade pt 2

**CHAPTER 20: Chaos in Hogsmeade (pt 1)**

_**December 23, 1971 (almost 23 years before)** _   
_**Chevenoir (The Black Manor House)** _   
_**The Private Study of Lord Arcturus Black** _   
_**8:37 p.m.** _

Arcturus Black took another sip of port while listening to the gentle scratching of a quill against parchment and trying not to think too much about how Sirius's hand shook as the boy wrote. He had revealed the existence of the Anathema Codex to his grandson and Heir a week before and then set about instructing Sirius as to the spells, rituals, and other abominations within the book via the same teaching technique his own father had employed so many decades before: intense immersion. He'd spent every day over the last week reviewing one Codex entry after another with the boy, addressing both each entry's dark nature and the identification sigils that would let any properly instructed son of an Ancient and Noble House recognize a Codex manifestation and respond appropriately. So as not to overly frighten the child, Arcturus began with the spells which were merely included because they were deemed too impossible to safely control before moving on to those which intentionally invoked catastrophe and horror. Regrettably, he had exhausted the "easy" Codex entries and was now forced to move on to the stuff of nightmares.

As part of the training process, Arcturus required Sirius to copy each identification sigil a minimum of 100 times before moving on to the next entry to ensure that the relevant information would be permanently etched into the boy's mind, locked away from even the most attentive Legilimens but still a part of him forever. If the portentousness of the lessons was not enough, the very special quill that Sirius was presently using would be more than enough to make sure the message sank in.

"I'm finished with this one, Grandfather," Sirius said quietly. Arcturus summoned the parchment from his hand, reviewed it for a moment, and then cast it into the nearby fire.

"Good," he said. "Now, we move on to the final entry for this evening's consideration."

At a flick of Arcturus's wand, the pages of the Black copy of the Anathema Codes flipped rapidly. "This entry is somewhat unusual compared to those you have studied so far, Sirius, though of course everything in the Codex is unusual in some way. This particular entry is peculiar because it is not a spell, nor a ritual, nor a potion, nor a procedure for breeding unnatural beasts. It is naught but a single rune."

With another flick of the wand, a ghostly mist floated up from the book before stabilizing into the shape of a strange runic mark. Sirius frowned. Although he was only one term into his Hogwarts education, he was a clever child and was certainly aware of what conventional runes looked like. As he scrunched up his eyes to focus them, he thought the rune looked like a basic pentagram within a circle rotated slightly but with additional lines and arcs overlayed upon the pentagram at odd angles. Then, he looked away and shook his head to clear it. For some reason, the image hurt his eyes if he studied it for too long.

"This rune is of no recorded language known to magical or Muggle history. It is apparently meaningless ... at least to humans. The Codex does not name it – wisely, I suspect – but simply identifies it with a sobriquet: The Rune of Singular Hate. The authors hypothesized that it represents some concept incomprehensible to us that is understood by beings from the deepest parts of the Wild. By Those-Who-Wait-In-Darkness."

Sirius shuddered deeply at the cryptic reference to the strange and mythic beings believed to dwell beyond the confines of the universe itself. Arcturus continued.

"According to the Codex, the Rune has the strange and curious power to insinuate itself into other nearby rune schemes, altering their natures in unwholesome ways. Carve the rune onto a broom, and it will change the properties of that broom's enchantments. Draw it on a parchment near the ward line of a house, and it will alter the functioning of those wards and likely the character of the building they protect. In so doing, the Rune functions in a manner similar to Sowilo, but where that common Futhark rune simply invokes the raw magical power, the Rune of Singular Hate generates an even greater magical force somehow drawn from the uncontrollable frenzied anger triggered among those nearby as a side effect of the Rune's activation. This rage-state is pervasive and contagious, and its power and range grow the longer the effect lasts. The more people affected, the more powerful and sophisticated the spell the Rune can fuel. In many cases, using the Rune can inflict permanent homicidal madness among those affected. Once activated, the rage-state can only be ended by the total destruction of the corrupted ward scheme, usually through the annihilation of whatever item or place was corrupted. Legends say that in ancient times entire cities were once burned to the ground as a result of the madness engendered by a Rune that was left to grow and fester unchecked."

Sirius frowned. "Who would make use of such a thing?"

Arcturus shrugged. "Who would be mad enough to use any of these things, boy! We among the Ancient and Noble Houses suppress such magics for a reason, after all. As for the Rune of Singular Hate, there are reasons for one to use it if he is desperate enough or ruthless enough or simply deranged enough. Rune schemes that incorporate this alien sigil are more powerful, and the resulting enchantments can be more versatile and useful, though by their very nature they are soon to self-destruct."

"There are two significant limitations on the Rune of Singular Hate. First, the magical effect powered by the Rune must have some punitive quality. The crafter of the Runes must identify a target likely to come into contact with the enchanted object or warded location, ideally one who is already subject to intense hatred. The crafter can target someone he personally despises or someone who means nothing to him but who has drawn the enmity of others if his ultimate goal is something other than mere revenge. When the Rune is triggered, the target must be close enough to the corrupted rune matrix to attract its attention, in which case, the Rune's magic will attempt to kill the target and anyone nearby while drawing more and more power from the raging mob unleashed by the Rune's activation. The caster can attempt to shape the manner of his victim's demise to his whims or simply let the magic run wild and allow Fate to dictate the manner of the victim's ending."

Arcturus smiled grimly. "Naturally, if the true goal was to create a raging mob, the crafter can simply target someone socially unpopular with a spell designed to drag out his death as long as possible so that more and more people fall under the Rune's sway."

Sirius was suitably horrified by the description. "That seems ... overly complicated," he finally said.

"You may think so," Arcturus said. "But it is said that Herpo the Foul unleashed the Rune of Singular Hate in the ancient city of Carthage, and before his work was done, the Romans burned the great city to the ground and salted the earth so that nothing would ever grow there again."

The old man barked out a laugh. "Of course, many things are said about Herpo the Foul, most of them absurdist nonsense. But it is clear from the Codex that a clever and ruthless Dark Lord could use the Rune to lay waste to a large enough area and also drive a sizeable population to madness if he hides the object that carries the curse where it cannot be found easily and then arranges to drag out the death of the selected target as long as possible."

Sirius nodded slowly. "And the second limitation?"

"Activating the Rune results in the swift and agonizing death of the one responsible for such activation."

That caught the boy by surprise. "Wait, why would anyone, even Herpo the Foul, use the Rune of Singular Hate if doing so was suicidal?!"

Arcturus laughed again. "Think it through, Sirius. I said the one who activates the Rune, not the one who crafted it and inserted it into the targeted matrix! If you're not inclined to die for your cause, all you need do is find someone stupid enough to die in your place!" The old man sniffed disdainfully. "It's usually not that hard."

* * *

_**31 October 1993** _   
_**11:55 a.m.** _

As Janos (now polyjuiced to resemble a young Sirius Black) and the other men filtered out of the room to prepare for their part of the attack, Scabior looked out the window to study the Tonks Clinic once more. Despite his best efforts, he could not see the cursed runes that the real Black and his allies had attached to the boundaries of the Clinic's wards. He shrugged to himself and pulled off his shirt to expose the rune that Fenrir Greyback had painted on his chest earlier that morning. The werewolf had assured Scabior that his part in today's exercise was essential the operation's success. When he heard the signal (and from what Greyback had said, the signal would be unmistakable), Scabior would read the incantation on the scrap of paper waiting in his pocket that would trigger the cursed runes and start the next phase of the operation. Fenrir also assured Scabior that he was being entrusted with this important role because of the wizards who'd volunteered for Sirius Black's scheme, the werewolf could tell that Scabior was easily the most powerful and most cunning.

" _Honestly, Scabior_ ," Greyback had said, " _your participation is_ _essential_ _to our plan_."

Scabior smiled. Finally, after years of struggling to survive in Knockturn Alley, he would get what he truly deserved.

* * *

Meanwhile, with a few soft pops, "Sirius Black" and the men who accompanied him apparated onto the roof of Tomes and Scrolls, a local bookstore across the street from the Hogsmeade Post Office. There, private citizens could rent owls for one-time mail deliveries, but the building had a far more important purpose than that. Since the Ministry of Magic came into being, the Post Office had also served as the primary admin facility for Ministry operations within the village. Among the other small offices inside the building was the Hogsmeade branch of the Department of Magical Transportation.

There were two permanent floo access points in Hogsmeade. One was at the Tonks Clinic which needed 24-hour access to St. Mungo's. The other was in the Three Broomsticks, which the Ministry had selected as the primary floo access portal to the village. As "Sirius" knew full well, both of those dedicated floo portals were about to be put out of commission. Every other floo-capable fireplace in Hogsmeade had its connection regulated out of the DoMT office in the building below, which meant that taking the Post Office down would cut the entire village off from floo travel. It wouldn't keep the Ministry from responding, but it would slow them down quite a bit.

"Sirius" called out to his men and directed them to let loose with their most destructive curses on his mark. Then, he pointed his wand at the Post Office and sneered, his eyes dancing at the thought of the chaos he was about to unleash.

" _ **BOMBARDA**_!"

The sound of the explosion resulting from a half-dozen Blasting Curses echoed across the village, as the Hogsmeade Post Office blew sky-high, and every fireplace in town instantly lost its connection to the Floo Network. Every fireplace but two. "Sirius" grinned and held his wand aloft to unleash a second spell.

" _ **MORSMODRE**_!"

* * *

_**The Tonks Clinic** _   
_**11:45 a.m. (Fifteen minutes earlier)** _

"Hello all!" Ted Tonks exclaimed brightly. "Welcome to the Tonks Clinic. Please, call me Ted."

The Healer opened the door wide and welcomed Theo and his two companions inside. "Now, you must be Hermione and you must be Ron ... unless naming conventions have changed drastically when I wasn't looking. Anyway, Theo has told me all about you!"

"I have?" Theo said in surprise. "I think I just gave their names and the fact that they were both Gryffindors interested in healing."

"Yes, yes. Well what else is there to know that we won't learn over lunch together? Mind you, lunch will be a bit late, I'm afraid. Andromeda is out on a house call, and she took Iris with her, and Dora is pestering some of the aurors who are on security duty today. And I'm quite hopeless in the kitchen, so unless you're fine with just a ham sandwich, we'll have to wait for them."

"That's fine, Ted," Theo said. "I think we're all too jumped up on Honeyduke's chocolate to be very hungry. Perhaps we could sit in the parlor while we wait for Andi and Iris to come back. I know Hermione and Ron have a lot of questions about magical healing."

If the subtext was that he wanted Ron and Hermione to ask their questions and then leave rather than just shadow him the whole day, neither of them seemed to pick up on it. The four of them sat in Ted's cozy parlor in front of the unlit fireplace, and Ted patiently answered Ron and Hermione's (but mainly Ron's) questions about the profession of magical healing. What classes should should he take? How hard are they? How hard is it to get a Healing apprenticeship if your family isn't "politically connected"? Did the Tonkses need any summer help? Hermione had fewer questions, but she did ask at one point of Ted was familiar with a condition called Mordenkainen's Disjunction. Ron shot a dirty look in her direction, while Theo suppressed a smile.

" _Heh. I guess I'm not the only one she does that to_ ," he thought.

For his part, Ted was intrigued by the question. Apparently, it was a rare condition among wizards, even more so than conventional dyslexia was among Muggles – he was quick to point out that the condition was not simply "wizarding dyslexia" – and he personally had never treated a case. But he had researched it during his apprenticeship, and he considered it not so much a learning disability as simply a different way of learning, one that made it harder to study and master spells, but it was also thought to grant other benefits such as superior spatial reasoning skills and better memory recall even without developing Occlumency skills. While there was no "cure" as such, the negative aspects of Mordenkainen's Disjunction (such as difficulty at learning wand movements and in reading comprehension) could be ameliorated by Charms that could alter written text to make it more legible or, if necessary, cause the text to read itself aloud. Ron was just about to ask for the names of those Charms when it happened.

 **BOOOM**!

The explosion was quite near, close enough to make the windows of the Tonks Clinic shake and rattle. "What the hell was that?!" Ted muttered in surprise.

Across the street, Scabior pulled out the parchment he'd been given. If  _that_  wasn't the signal, he couldn't imagine what would be. He grinned once more as he studied the incantation. He didn't really know what the Latin words meant, let alone what it would do, but he was sure he could pronounce the incantation well enough for the Death Eaters' needs. " _Finally_ ," he thought. " _After today, everyone's gonna know my name._ "

" _ **PER VITA MEA, PERFLUAT ODIUM**_!"

As the last word left his lips, there was a flash of light from the ward line of the Tonks Clinic which seemed to put forth a heat-haze that quickly surrounded the building. Then, a massive floating ethereal rune manifested on each side of the house at the cardinal directions. A strange rune, like a pentagram but not, and one that perfectly matched the one inscribed on Scabior's chest in a mixture of ink and blood provided by that creepy man who had accompanied Greyback to their private meeting earlier this morning.

Suddenly, Scabior felt that something was wrong. There was a sharp burning sensation on his chest as the rune there began to glow. And then caught fire! Scabior screamed in pain and surprise and started prying to pat the fires out with his hands. If anything that made it worse, for the green fire that had engulfed his chest also stuck to his hands, causing them to ignite as well. He dropped to the ground and began to roll about in agony. Strangely, the green fire did not ignite anything else in the room, but neither did rolling on the floor do anything to smother the flames.

In the end, Scabior was denied his wish. His body would writhe in agony for another thirty seconds before expiring. By then, the skin on most of his body was completely blackened. Within another two minutes, his corpse would be the color and consistency of spent charcoal, naught but a grainy ashy powder lying on the floor in a vaguely humanoid shape. No one would remember Scabior's name ... because there simply wouldn't be enough of him left to identify his remains.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the clinic, Ted swiftly headed towards the door but paused in surprise while on the way.

"What is it?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I don't know," he answered. "Something with the wards." He shook his head and continued to the front door. But as soon as he grasped the door handle, the wizard screamed in shock and pain. He staggered back, his right hand covered in terrible burns. And the door handle that had burned him was now covered in a corona of sickly green flame so hot that the brass handle had already started to melt. Then, to the children's horror, blackened letters suddenly started to appear on the door itself as if burned into the wood by some invisible flame. Letters that spelled out a single word that Theo No-Name had already learned to hate.

 ** _OUTCAST_**!

Outside the Tonks Clinic, those wizards and witches in the street who were still wondering about the source of the explosion they'd just heard now stared in wonderment and fear at the clinic which was now wreathed in a strange heat-haze and surrounded on all four sides by eerie sigils floating in the air, sigils almost as big as the house itself. Within a few seconds though, those expressions of wonderment and fear soon changed to dazed looks ... followed by increasingly angry glares.

Auror Gawain Robards, who was in town as part of the Ministry security detachment was the first on the scene. He'd been on his way towards the site of the explosion that had rocked the town just seconds earlier when he'd noticed the unusual phenomenon at the Tonks Clinic. There was a small crowd in front of the clinic, but it seemed to be growing. In the distance, he could hear someone with a magically amplified voice shouting out orders of some kind, but he was too distracted for the words to immediately register.

"What's going on here?" he exclaimed aloud.

"It's the Outcast," one of the townspeople said in an odd strangled voice. "He's to blame!"

"Eh? What are you talking about?" Robards was confused. He knew about Theo No-Name, of course. Every auror assigned to Hogsmeade during today's student outing had been briefed on the Outcast's unfortunate situation, which was one of many thing that Chief Potter thought might cause a disturbance of some kind. But the auror couldn't imagine what a Hogwarts Third Year, even the son of a suspected Death Eater, might have to do with either the explosion (which had actually been some distance away, near the Post Office, Robards thought) or the same pyrotechnic display now before him.

"Outcast!" said another nearby villager. "Outcast! Outcast!"

Robards looked around nervously as the angry refrain was picked up by more and more villagers. He held up his wand and shot off some fireworks in an effort to gain everyone's attention before a riot broke out, never realizing that it was already too late for that.

"Alright now! Everyone just settle down and go back to your ...  _OOF_!" The auror's instructions were cut off as an elderly but surprisingly spry witch jumped onto his back and began trying to claw his eyes out with her bare hands.

"OUTCAST! OUTCAST!"

Robards managed to throw the witch off, but by then, there were dozens of people chanting the word "Outcast" with a terrifying intensity. Not everyone nearby seemed to be affected, but those that were immediately turned on those who were not. He managed to stun three villagers before he was knocked to the ground, his wand sent flying. Then, the maddened villagers dogpiled him, punching and kicking him as they went.

* * *

**_The Three Broomsticks_ **   
**_11:57 a.m._ **

As the rest of his semi-estranged family departed the Three Broomsticks along with Pettigrew, Harry let out a long slow breath of relief. He'd realized during the earlier luncheon that Pettigrew was an Occlumens, but it was unknown if he had any Legilimency skills. Harry thought it unlikely but better safe than sorry. Accordingly, he'd spent the past hour carefully modulating his emotions so that (a) none of the Potters knew how much he disliked Pettigrew and (b) Pettigrew himself knew exactly how much Harry liked him, but (c) Pettigrew would not know the true reason for Harry's disdain. Aside from making the luncheon unduly stressful for the boy, it had also given him a mild headache, but with his status as Seneschal to House Potter and "best friend" to the Chief Auror, Peter Pettigrew was perhaps one of the most influential and dangerous Death Eaters in the country. If the man even suspected that Harry knew his true allegiance, the results could be fatal.

"Well, Potter," said Mad-Eye Moody after tipping back and draining the last of his (not-butter) beer, "not that I haven't enjoyed this free meal on the Minister's coin, but when you asked me to be your chaperone, you said you wanted me to stick around afterwards for some reason you couldn't discuss in an owl post."

Harry looked around. "How good are your privacy charms?"

Moody crooked his one good eyebrow and then pulled out his wand. A short incantation later, he answered the question. "Impeccable. So what's going on?"

Swiftly, Harry outlined the situation between Amy Wilkes and Tiberius Nott before asking if Moody would mind using his magic eye to spy on the meeting that was about to take place upstairs. The ex-auror frowned disapprovingly.

"Potter, I know I've probably given you the impression that I'm a bit of a rule-breaker when I need to be, but there are laws against using magic to spy on confidential meetings, even meetings of accused former Death Eaters. I can't just ..."

Before he could say anything more, the door to inn opened, and a group of wizards entered: Tiberius Nott, the Goyle family, and Amaryllis Wilkes. Nott noticed Harry and Moody and simply sneered contemptuously at them, while young Amy nodded in Harry's direction and did her best to show no emotion. The group headed up the stairs to the meeting room that Madam Rosmerta had reserved for them without any further consideration of Harry, Moody or anyone else. Moody growled softly.

"Well, maybe just this once," he muttered, and his magical eye swivelled around in its socket to look straight up. "Mind you, I may be able to see them, but it's at a bad angle for observation unless I wanted to peer up Madam Goyle's skirts. Also, I won't be able to hear anything. Are you expecting Nott to try to hurt the girl?"

"No," Harry said before amending his answer. "At least, not today. I think the hurting part won't start until after the marriage ceremony."

Moody's distaste was obvious. "And when's the 'happy occasion'?"

"Sometime next June, I think."

"Uh-huh. So far, they're just talking and eating. And for what it's worth, Nott's table manners are atrocious." Moody's eye refocused on Harry for a second and then whirled around in its socket to study the Common Room. "We're a bit obvious here, Potter. Let's take a walk. I can probably keep a better eye on your little friend with some distance instead of right under her. Plus, it'll give us a chance to talk shop. You still coming in for a lesson this afternoon?"

"Assuming nothing changes," Harry said as he and the ex-auror stood.

"Mm-hmm. Any progress on your wandless exercises?"

"Nope," the boy answered with some annoyance.

Moody laughed. "Well talk about some strategies that might help during your lesson."

"Like what?"

"Well," Moody said diplomatically, "theoretically, if you were an Occlumens at level three or higher, you could open up a secondary thought-stream that would spend all its time constantly remembering all your prior summoning attempts. That might speed up the process a bit. Mind you, there are some pitfalls you'll need to be wary of with that approach. Or that you  _would_  be need to wary of, if you ever became an Occlumens. Hypothetically, I mean."

"Well, honestly, Mr. Moody," Harry drawled as if bored, "how likely is it for a thirteen-year-old to learn Occlumency at all, let alone reach that level? Pretty improbable, isn't it?"

They both chuckled as they exited the bar and made their way down the street. The whole time, Moody's magic eye remained fixed on the meeting room where Nott and Amy appeared to be in polite discussion over their main course. All around the two, students from Hogwarts milled about the streets of Hogsmeade, enjoying the sunny day. Quality Quidditch Supply still had a mob of students practically drooling over the Firebolt prototype. Zonko's had its usual hyperactive crowd. As they moved further down the street, Harry glanced in the window of Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop and was surprised to see Emily Rossum (who was supposed to be at the Auror Academy) and Marcus Flint(!), the latter of whom seemed profoundly uncomfortable to be seen in the notoriously frilly establishment. Harry resisted the temptation to pop in to say hi ... and see if he could somehow make Flint blush even harder. Instead, he inquired about Amy once more, and Moody reassured him that everything still seemed fine.

"All in all," Harry thought, "this has turned out to be a surprisingly nice day."

Naturally, that thought was immediately followed by the sound of the first explosion of the afternoon - followed swiftly by the first appearance of the Dark Mark in the skies above Britain in more than a decade.

* * *

_**12:03 p.m.** _   
_**The Potters** _

After leaving the Three Broomsticks, Jim and his parents made their way down the streets of Hogsmeade, with Peter Pettigrew close behind. Jim looked unusually pensive, and Lily noticed and asked him what was wrong. The boy looked back and forth between the three grown-ups he cared about the most.

"There's ... something I had wanted to talk to you about. But ... I didn't want to get into it in front of Mr. Moody or the Minister."

James looked at the boy curiously. "What is it, son?"

Jim looked around. For once, he was out and about without a throng of admirers. The news reporters had apparently gotten their fill of him for once, and while it was a bit of a wonder in Hogsmeade for the Boy-Who-Lived to finally visit, the town was also overwhelmed by the rest of the visiting students.

"When I'm near Dementors ... I ... I hear things," he said quietly. The three adults looked at each other in confusion and worry.

"What sort of ... things, sport?" Peter asked cautiously.

Jim took a deep breath and then waved away a tiny beetle that had almost flown into his mouth. "I think it's ... that night."

"Which night?" James asked, although he feared he knew. Without even asking, Peter pulled out his wand and set up a privacy ward.

" _That_  night. Halloween 1981. I hear the sound of a woman screaming. And then a man with a real scary high-pitched voice laughing. And then ... I remember a flash of green." He looked up at his mother and father nervously. "I've never asked you what happened the night You-Know-Who showed up at our house. But ... is that it? Am I remembering his attack?"

All three of the adults looked suitably horrified by that possibility. Finally, James let out a sigh.

"I don't know, Jim. You might well be. Dementors do force you to relieve your worst memories, though I've never heard of one forcing you to relive something from infancy. Your mother and I will tell you what we can but ..."

"Honestly, Jim," Lily continued. "Neither of us remember much. Whatever curse You-Know-Who used on us both was some kind of incredibly powerful stunner. It took the healers hours to come up with a counter-curse that would wake us up, and when we did wake up, our memories of the night were jumbled up badly."

James nodded his agreement. "I remember the wards tripping when he crossed them. And I remember telling Lily to run for the nursery. It was on the second floor, but there was a window in that room and we kept a broom in there, just in case. I ... think I remember seeing his face and him pointing his wand at me, but everything else is just a blur."

Lily nodded sadly. "And I remember running up the stairs to the nursery, but I only had a few seconds before he followed me. I know I heard spellfire and the sound of James getting knocked out. I think I may have heard him laughing as well. Before I could do anything, the door burst open and ... that's the last thing I recall, I'm afraid. I'm sure I screamed as well. Anyone would under those circumstances."

Peter patted the boy on the shoulder. "Jim, it's ... amazing that you should be able to remember all that. And also ... horrible that it should come to you from being around those foul Dementors. I know this must be traumatic for you, but just remember – that's all in the past. Try not to think about You-Know-Who. He can't hurt you here."

 _ **BOOOM**_!

As the explosion echoed through the town, Lily gasped and pointed. Rising up over Hogsmeade from the far side of town was the unmistakable sight of the Dark Mark.

"My god!" Lily exclaimed in horror. James looked around wildly as he drew his wand. From somewhere nearby, they all heard Mad-Eye Moody's voice call out an amplified warning.

"Lily start getting students back to the school," James said. "That means you too, Jim."

Jim shook his head. "I want to stay, Dad! I can help!"

James looked deeply into his son's eyes as if to gauge his intent. "Peter?" he said without breaking eye contact with Jim.

"On it," Pettigrew said as he tightly gripped the boy's shoulders.

"What?!" Jim exclaimed. "No...!" But before he could react, Peter side-apparated the boy away to safety. James turned to Lily.

"They're off to Peter's office. From there, Peter will send Jim back to Albus's office via floo."

Lily nodded. Then, in a sudden move, she stepped forward and kissed James on the lips before pulling back with her hand still on his cheek. "I'm going to find Harry. Go to work. And remember – be brave, not stupid!"

He smirked. "Yes, ma'am!" Then, he darted off in the direction of the explosion, while Lily ran back towards the Three Broomsticks, herding students back towards Hogwarts as she went. She made it back to Madam Rosmerta's in time to see Harry's departure ... and scream at the sight of his pursuers.

* * *

_**12:05 p.m.** _   
_**The Gates of Hogwarts** _

Malachi Sturgeon had spent the better part of three hours standing by the doors to the Great Hall checking the names of Hogwarts students as they left for Hogsmeade and returned. Well, mostly standing. After two hours, when no one was looking, he transfigured a nearby rock into a chair to sit in. Idly, he thought back on his own school days spent here under a different name and wondered if Old Filch had also been required to waste the better part of a day at this same post, keeping up with departures and returns without even the comfort of a transfigured chair. He had a momentary stab of sympathy for his squib predecessor that lasted until he inevitably remembered some of the man's crueler detentions and felt such feelings wash away.

It was warm for this time of year, and the doors of the castle were wide open with several students coming out to look around on their way to lunch. Among them was young Lavender Brown who had strangely taken a shine to the Hogwarts Caretaker. In truth, Remus Lupin had grown bored of his snarling "Argus Filch" impression, and so the demeanor of Malachi Sturgeon had relaxed a bit. In fact, it had apparently relaxed enough for some of the female students to notice that he was surprisingly muscular beneath his shabby clothing and that his beard made him seem more rugged and dashing than he had ever intended (which is to say that he had never intended to seem rugged or dashing at all).

Also outside on the front steps of the school was a Second Year Gryffindor named Luna Lovegood who seemed to be nibbling nervously on a dinner roll she'd brought out from the Great Hall. The girl had been sitting there ever since her friend Amy Wilkes had left about thirty minutes prior in the company of her house-mate Gregory Goyle. Remus turned to Lavender.

"Not going to Hogsmeade?" he asked, still with a bit of gruffness, though the girl did not seem to mind. Lavender shook her head.

"I was warned not to by a seer," she replied with visible disappointment. "And I'd been so looking forward to it."

Remus frowned. In his youth, he'd been one of Minerva McGonagall's favorite students, and he long ago picked up on and adopted his mentor's disdain for the art of Divination. But before he could respond, the Lovegood girl spoke up.

"A seer?" she asked somewhat dubiously. "Do you mean Hermione?"

"Yeah, it was Hermione who warned me." Lavender noticed Luna's expression. "You don't believe she's a seer? No offense, Luna, but I thought you had a reputation for believing ... well, almost anything."

Luna turned back towards Hogsmeade. "Not so. I'm actually fairly particular about what strange impossible things I choose to believe in."

"Well, personally, I've seen enough from Hermione to trust her Third Eye," Lavender answered haughtily. "You just need to be more open-minded about such ..."

Luna interrupted the other girl with a sudden cry as she stood up quickly, dropping the dinner roll on the ground as she did. She gaped at Hogsmeade with a look of horror on her face.

"I take it back," she said in a shaky voice. "Hermione was wise to tell you not to go to Hogsmeade. I just wish she'd warned everyone else."

She turned to Remus with a frightened expression. "Mr. Sturgeon, you must send word to the Headmaster at once. The students who've gone to Hogsmeade must return immediately!"

"Why?" he asked guardedly.

"Can't you hear it?!" she exclaimed as she turned back towards the village. "Hogsmeade is  _screaming_!"

Lavender and Remus looked at each confusion for a moment before their attention was seized by the sound of a great explosion from somewhere in the town ... followed soon after by the manifestation of a Dark Mark in the sky over it.

Remus gasped in shock, and in a flash, a wand was in his hand. " _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM**_." His silvery wolf Patronus appeared to receive the message he wished to convey. "Go to Albus Dumbledore. Tell him that Hogsmeade is under attack and the Dark Mark has been seen!"

As he spoke, Lavender whispered to Luna in surprise – " _You mean he's not really a squib?!_ " But the other girl's attention was still on Hogsmeade where so many of her friends still were.

His message sent, Lupin turned to Lavender. "Make sure that no students leave for Hogsmeade!" Then, he turned and ran down the pathway leading to the village with remarkable speed. Not an inhuman speed, necessarily, but enough to challenge the Muggle record for a 100 meter dash. The second he crossed the school's ward line, he disappeared in a pop of apparition.

* * *

_**12:06 p.m.** _   
_**Harry and Moody** _

**BOOOM**!

"What the hell?!" Harry exclaimed in surprise as Moody's eye swiveled towards the direction of the blast. Harry looked that way too and gasped in shock as a thick cloud of mist appeared over the far side of town and then coalesced into a hideous skull from whose mouth a translucent snake seemed to slither out. While he'd never seen one in person, Harry was enough of a student of the last Wizarding War to recognize the Dark Mark.

"Merlin's bones," Moody exclaimed under his breath before he raised his wand to his throat.

" _ **SONOROUS**_! ATTENTION! THIS IS ALASTOR MOODY! HOGSMEADE IS UNDER ATTACK! ALL HOGWARTS STUDENTS WILL RETURN TO THE SCHOOL IMMEDIATELY! ALL AURORS CONVERGE ON THE HOGSMEADE POST OFFICE AT ONCE!"

He canceled the spell and turned to the shocked boy. "Death Eaters," he said ruefully in confirmation of Harry's fears. "Or at the very least, thugs dressed up to look like Death Eaters. I'm going that way now.  _You_  are  _not_! Get back to Hogwarts now!"

"What about Amy?!" Harry asked urgently. Moody thought for a second.

"Go to Madam Rosmerta. Tell her that I said to alert Lord Nott's party that all students are to go back to the school at once. She will get Amy for you. Now  _move_!"

With that, Moody turned and hobbled away as fast as he could. Harry hesitated for a moment before turning back towards the Three Broomsticks. By this point, there was pandemonium in the streets of Hogsmeade as students were fleeing back towards the school and locals were taking shelter in their homes. He also heard apparition pops from all around. But then, just as he could see the inn in the distance, he noticed six cloaked figures running inside, their wands already drawn. And as he drew closer, he was horrified to hear someone in the inn yell out " ** _BOMBARDA_**!" followed by another explosion. He crept closer and peered through a window before putting a hand over his mouth to stop himself from gasping aloud.

Inside, Madam Rosmerta and the remaining customers, both locals and Hogwarts students, were huddled together as the hostages of what appeared to be six partially-transformed werewolves under the leadership of the man who Harry recognized from the Prophet as Fenrir Greyback. The Blasting Curse had been meant for the inn's floo, which was now in a shambles. No help would be coming from that direction, nor would anyone be escaping through it.

Greyback growled out an order to his pack. "You three! Guard this room. Kill anyone who tries to enter or any hostages who try to fight back. Stavros and Jonny, you're with me." With that, the fearsome werewolf and two of his men bounded up the stairs.

* * *

_**12:09 p.m.** _   
_**Upstairs at the Three Broomsticks** _

To Amy's surprise, lunch with Tiberius Nott had not been utterly dreadful. The food was actually pretty good, and the adults were doing a good job of talking around the elephant in the room – the fact that her guardians were about to sell her off at the age of twelve to a man easily old enough to be her father. She was still utterly horrified by the idea of marrying Nott Sr., but for the moment at least, everyone was trying to cover up the awfulness with a veneer of civility. Unfortunately, the mood ended rather abruptly when the voice of someone named Alastor Moody announced that the town was under attack by ...  _Death Eaters_?! Amy looked back and forth between the adults in the room who were as confused as her to hear about Death Eaters attacking the village. Apparently, they hadn't gotten the memo.

Seconds later, the room shook violently from sort of explosion below, causing Madam Goyle to let out a scream of terror. Nott rose quickly from his chair and closed his eyes.

"An Anti-Apparition Jinx is in effect," he said angrily as he drew his wand. Amy's face darkened at the realization that the cowardly old man had just tried to flee leaving his " _fianceé_ " behind. From outside, they could hear the sounds of feet running up the stairs. Nott quickly fired off a Colloportus to bar the door, but he needn't have bothered. The door practically flew off its hinges from the strength of the blow Fenrir Greyback gave it. This time, Amy did scream as she backed away the nightmarish figure standing in the doorway. Although Greyback wasn't fully transformed, his partial transformation was frightening enough with his jet black eyes, protruding fangs, and clawed fingers.

"We're just here for the girl, Nott!" he snarled. "Give her up and you won't be harmed!"

The werewolf's statement caught Nott by surprise, so much so that he hesitated before aiming his wand at the intruders and wasn't fast enough. An Expelliarmus from one of the other werewolves caught the former Death Eater and knocked him into the far wall. Greg took the opportunity to flip over the table so that they would have some cover, and soon the three Goyles and their attackers were trading spells in the enclosed room. Amy had to duck down to avoid getting caught by spellfire, and to her horror, one of Greyback's men took a Stunner to the face without even slowing down as he rolled his way around the table towards her.

Then, Amy screamed again as the window next to her exploded inwards from the force of a garbage bin from the alley below that had been hurled through it. Terror turned to hope though when she recognized the voice that cried out from down below.

"AMY!" yelled Harry Potter. "JUMP!"

The Slytherin girl didn't hesitate. She took three running steps and hurled herself through the second-story window just before the werewolf could grab her. " _ **ARRESTO MOMENTUM**_!" she heard Harry cry out as soon as she was clear of the broken window. Instantly, the spell took hold of her and let her fall gently to the ground. Then, Harry cast again.  _"_ ** _SERPENSORTIA_** ** _OPPUGNO_**!" There was a flash of light, and then the werewolf who had stuck his head through the window to snarl at the two of them was suddenly distracted by the angry king cobra that had just materialized on top of him. He fell back into room from which the sound of spellfire could still be heard. As Amy got up off the ground, Harry grabbed her wrist.

"Come on!" he ordered. Meanwhile, he waved his wand towards the window again. " ** _FUMOS MAXIMA_**!" A thick mist poured from his wand, and as Harry and Amy fled the alleyway, the heavy fog soon reduced visibility in first the alley and then the nearby street to almost nothing. Harry, who could see perfectly well through the fog, led Amy across the street. Behind them, they could hear the sounds of shouting and then a crash as the werewolves followed them out the window and down the alleyway. In response, Harry gestured with his wand and whispered another incantation, one Amy didn't recognize. Suddenly, barely visible though the fog, there was another Harry and Amy running off in a different direction but much closer to the werewolves. Meanwhile, Harry led Amy into the sidestreet where they took cover behind some old boxes.

" _Just stay quiet_ ," he whispered. " _When they've gone, we'll sneak back to the school._ "

The two waited in silence for several seconds, only to start in surprise and fear when a nearby voice called out to them.

"Nice try, boy," growled Fenrir from the front of the alleyway. "A clever use of an illusion spell, but then you ruined it by whispering to your little friend." He snorted contemptuously. "Werewolf ears are far more sensitive than those of mere humans. Yet another way we're better than you." The other two werewolves behind him laughed at his remarks.

"Good to know," said Harry as stood up with his wand pointed towards the three werewolves. " _ **SONOROUS**_!" he yelled with the accent on the first syllable instead of the second as Moody had used earlier. And that was enough to change the spell from the Sound-Enhancing Charm to the Glass-Shattering Curse. Instantly, all three werewolves staggered back in agony and clutched their hands over their ears in response to the deafening whine coming from Harry's wand. Across the street, Harry saw several windows shatter, including the front window of Quality Quidditch Supply. He adjusted his aim slightly and cried out again. " _ **ACCIO FIREBOLT**_!" The werewolves were only beginning to recover from the sonic attack when one of them was knocked to the ground as Firebolt prototype from the window whacked him in the head on its way to Harry's grasp.

"This has been fun," Harry said as he and Amy mounted the broom. "But we really should be going."

* * *

_**12:13 p.m.** _   
_**The Tonks Clinic** _

Ted staggered back in agony as smoke rose from the burns on his hand. He lost his balance and fell, but Ron and Theo were there to catch him and pull him away from the smouldering door which was now covered with burning marks that said "OUTCAST" over and over again. Hermione looked at the door in horror.

"We need to get out of here right now," she declared. "Get Ted away from the door!" The two boys complied, while the girl readied her wand. " _ **ALOHOMORA**_!" Magical energy washed against the front door of the clinic to no avail. She took a few steps back and tried something else. " _ **BOMBARDA**_!"

Theo and Ron barely had time to express their shock that she'd resorted to an explosive Charm in such an enclosed space. It didn't matter. That spell also had no effect except apparently to give encouragement to whatever force was vandalizing the door – instead of simply repeating the word "OUTCAST" the strange effect had moved on to complete sentences:

_"DIE, OUTCAST, DIE!"_

Undaunted, Hermione turned and tried again, this time firing the Blasting Hex against the nearby bay windows. " _ **BOMBARDA**_!" This time, the glass shattered outward explosively, but before anyone even move towards the new opening, the broken glass froze in mid-air. Then, with a strange growling sound, the broken window reassembled itself. The three children hardly had time to realize what had happened when they were distracted by a fresh horror, as the nearby floo erupted into a blazing bonfire so intense that the flames extended outside the stone hearth and began to climb up the wall above instantly incinerating the family pictures on the mantle. A blazing green bonfire of a shade that Theo had seen before and remembered in his nightmares.

"Merlin save us," he said in horror. "That's FIENDFYRE!"

And the cursed fire lived up to its name, as the flames erupting from the fireplace turned into a wall of solid fire that then manifested a great and terrible face with eyes and a leering mouth. And then, the fire spoke.

_"We're coming for you, Theo No-Name!"_

The face inhaled, as if drawing a deep breath. Instinctively, the children leaped out of the way as a gout of fire blasted across the room. Hermione was on one side where she'd managed to pull a semi-conscious Ted away from the spreading hellfire. Ron and Theo were on the other, with the fire on one side and the seemingly impenetrable door, window and wall (which was now covered in burning words that condemned Theo as an Outcast) on the other. And then, as if things couldn't get any worse, the curtains on either side of the window burst into green flames as well.

_"We're coming for you, and we're going to burn you alive!"_

* * *

_**12:19 p.m.** _   
_**The alleyway across from the Three Broomsticks** _

Swiftly, Harry and Amy took off, dodging spellfire as they went, but Harry was just able to make out the sound of Greyback summoning brooms for himself and his fellow werewolves. Harry cursed softly and flew down the alley and circled around the building before gaining altitude. Unfortunately, their starting position required them to circle around Hogsmeade before heading back to the school. Even more unfortunately, Harry was dismayed to notice that the broom was not accelerating as he'd expected. Following the shopkeeper's instructions, he reached forward and touched his thumb to a small indentation in the wood had been scored with a faint rune, and instantly, diagnostic information about the Firebolt flowed into his mind. He swore softly and then jerked the broom to dodge a Stunner from the werewolves who were now airborne and in pursuit.

"What is it!?" Amy yelled to be heard over the sound of rushing air.

"The brooms still in Seeker-mode! Most of the custom acceleration Charms are disabled because having two riders throws off the balance! If it were in Standard-mode, we'd be going a lot faster. And if it was in Seeker-mode with just me, I'd already be home by now!"

"Can you switch modes?"

"Not without landing!" he replied. "Maneuverability Charms are fine, so we'll just have to dodge til we get back to Hogwarts. Like  _now_!" Harry jerked the broom sharply in response to the sound of spellcasting behind them, and two red flashes shot by, missing them by just a few feet.

" _Well, on the bright side_ ," Harry thought, " _they're after Amy and want to take her alive, so no Killing Curses ... I hope._ "

Harry flew fast as the broom would allow, but while he was still moving faster than the three werewolves on their stolen Nimbuses, their positioning and attacks stopped him from just flying straight back to the castle. He decided his best bet was take an arcing path that would carry him over the Forbidden Forest onto the castle grounds. He only hoped he could outrun the Dementors. He dodged a few more spells and then held his wand behind him to cast another Smoke-Screen Charm as Amy held on for dear life.

Seconds later, they were approaching the Forbidden Forest. While there were about a hundred or so Dementors floating over the woods, the Forbidden Forest itself was huge and so the Dementors seemed to be spread out enough for Harry to plot a course between them. As he made his move towards the forest's air-space, however, Harry was shocked to see one Dementor in particular moving on what looked like an intercept course ... with a few dozen more apparently triggered by its actions and closing in on Harry's trajectory. At the last possible second, he yelled out "HANG ON!" and jerked the broom handle up as hard as he could. Instantly, the broom's velocity was redirected vertically. Amy didn't scream, but if she'd had her arms around Harry any tighter, he'd have probably broken some ribs.

As the broom shot higher and higher, Harry pointed his wand straight ahead and cast Fumos Maxima once more. Soon, the ascending broom was trailing a thick cloud of mist that he hoped would prevent the werewolves from getting a clear shot before he could get high enough to arc over the forest and onto the schools' grounds. He was successful, though unfortunately, not in the way he'd wanted. Frustrated at his inability to clearly see his quarry, Greyback and Stavros veered off until they were out of the magical fog before turning back to look at the students and their stolen Firebolt, still pursued by a determined Jonny.

"I think I've had enough of this shit," Fenrir snarled as he pointed his wand up in the Firebolt's general direction and bellowed the incantation for a modified Bombarda. The spell shot up past and to the right of Harry and Amy before detonating in a shockwave just as their broom was even with it. The wave of force hit Harry like a wrecking ball and stunned him for an instant before he regained his senses. Immediately, the boy dilated his perceptions –  _ **Thump-thump**_  – to take stock of his circumstances.

They weren't good. Now Amy  _was_  screaming, hysterically in fact. She was also about ten feet away from to his left, and the pursuing werewolf had altered course to catch her. His stolen Firebolt was about ten feet to his right but flying away from him in a lazy spiral. His holly and phoenix wand was only five feet in front of him but might as well have been back in his room for all the good that did. And the ground?

That was less than 2000 feet away and closing fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Per vita mea, perfluat odium" is (hopefully) Latin for "Through my life, let hatred flow." Big shout-out to LordBritish for the translation assistance.


	22. Hogsmeade, pt 3

_**HAPTER 21: Chaos in Hogsmeade (pt 2)** _

_**12:12 p.m.** _   
_**The Streets of Hogsmeade** _

James ran as fast as he could towards the explosion. It helped that Mad-Eye Moody had graciously yelled out the target location loud enough to be heard across town. While he and Moody had parted on bad terms, he still had enormous respect for the grizzled old veteran and he hoped the man would be along soon to assist. While James had insisted on an Auror Corps presence today, he had not been able to assign as many as he'd wanted. In addition to himself and Moody (who technically didn't count), there were only seven other aurors in the village: Gawain Robards, Kingsley Shacklebolt, young Michael Proudfoot, and four trainees in their last year at the Academy who were mainly here for field training. Oh, and the Tonks girl was here somewhere. Hopefully that would be enough.

Unfortunately, those hopes soon seemed to be in vain. As he turned the corner onto Wizarding Way, the street that ran in front of the Hogsmeade Post Office, James was dismayed to see that the attackers looked to be over a dozen people in Death Eater uniforms and masks. All except for one – the leader who seemed eager to show off his face. Apparently, Sirius Black was just as arrogant and cocky as he'd been back at school.

There was no sign of either Robards or Moody, but Shack seemed to have taken command of the defense with Proudfoot and two of the trainees standing together behind a hastily conjured barrier that seemed in imminent danger of collapse under the Death Eater onslaught. Potter grimaced as he saw that the other two trainees were down, and from here, he couldn't tell whether they were even still alive.

There was a flash of green light, and James had to dive for cover behind a fruit and vegetable stand. He ducked his head up and fumed as he realized that it was Sirius who fired the Killing Curse at him.  _The bastard!_ Luckily, the stand had survived the spell – James was a Transfiguration specialist, and fruits and vegetables gave him a lot to work with. With a deft flick of his wand, all the apples, pears, tomatoes and other items in the cart suddenly transformed into huge wasps as big as a man's hand, and at his command, they flew out of the cart and began swarming over the Death Eaters.

Then, with a second flick, the entire empty cart itself transfigured into a large brass bull which instantly charged straight for Sirius Black. Those Death Eaters not distracted by the wasps sent cutting curses towards the bull, but they all bounced off its metal hide. But then, to James's surprise, Sirius Black  _jumped over_  the bull, firing off a Blasting Curse at James while in mid-air. The auror only barely jumped to safety, and even then, the concussive forced threw him about twenty feet. Shacklebolt summoned him to the barricade which was starting to crumble under the assault. Shaking off the impact of the explosion, James touched his wand to it, and the barricade quickly repaired itself and became even more durable. On the other side, over half the Death Eaters were still batting off wasps and the brass bull was circling around for another attack. As James considered what spell to cast next, he was distracted by a loud pop and then surprised by its point of origin – up in the sky above the Dark Mark that loomed over the town.

* * *

As Remus approached the ward line at Hogwarts, he could clearly see the Dark Mark in the sky. A veteran of the last Wizarding War, he knew all too well about the Dark Mark and some of its properties. In particular, there was now most likely an anti-apparition and anti-portkey jinx over Hogsmeade. But Remus also knew that the jinx extended out and down from the Mark in a cone-like shape. The jinx was probably not in affect in the airspace above it. That gave Remus an option, albeit a dangerous one. As soon as he hit the ward line, the werewolf apparated -

\- and materialized in the air above the Dark Mark and about fifty feet over the rooftop of Tomes & Scrolls. Surviving the fall unscathed might have been challenging even for a werewolf but not for a werewolf who was also a 99th degree master of the Path of Air. As he started his fall, Remus extended his arms straight out, stiffened his legs, and allowed himself to spin around in mid-air like a top. The magic of his Wu Xi Do technique slowed his rate of fall so that he dropped almost gently to the rooftop. On his way down, he made note of the position of the Death Eaters in the street below. And especially, the position of Sirius Black. He pulled out his wand and stepped back into the opening kata for the  _Tiger Pounces and Rolls_  Technique, and then he ran for the edge of the rooftop.

With a mighty leap, Remus jumped off the two-story building to land feet first on the shoulders of one of the Death Eaters, knocking him to the ground and dislocating both his arms. Then, Lupin flipped off the man into a roll that carried him five feet away to the next nearest Death Eater, who he knocked to the ground with a leg sweep before stunning him with his wand. Finally, he jumped up into a sprint, parrying incoming spells as he ran directly towards his old friend turned enemy. Along the way, he got off a Depulso that hurled one of the Death Eaters straight into the path of James's charging brass bull. When Remus was less than ten feet away from his target, he made an incredible leap that put him into position for a jumping side kick to Sirius's head. He struck the Death Eater so hard the man did a back flip to land on his stomach, seemingly stunned.

Unfortunately, the operative word was "seemingly." As Remus went to apprehend Sirius, the other man suddenly jumped up and slashed at Remus hard enough to rip his shirt and, worse, to make him lose his wand. Sirius himself had apparently abandoned his own wand in favor of his other more natural weapons. Or perhaps lupine rage gave him no choice, for the man now had the jet-black eyes, pronounced fangs, and deadly claws of a partially-transformed werewolf! Lupin's eyes narrowed, and he inhaled briefly to take in the other man's scent.

"You're not Sirius!" he growled.

"You're a dead man, whoever you are!" the imposter said as he lunged towards Remus. Remus snorted. As if he didn't have enough clues, the man's refusal to make the trademark Sirius/Serious joke clinched the deal.

The other werewolf slashed again with his right hand, but Remus was ready now. He caught the arm easily with his left hand and then struck with his right at a pressure point on the werewolf's upper arm. The man howled in pain and his right arm fell limp and paralyzed. Then, for good measure, Remus stepped forward and peppered the other werewolf with a flurry of body blows, each of which struck additional chi points on his body. The false Sirius dropped to his knees, barely conscious. Finally, Remus pulled back his hand into a claw-like shape and focused his attention on the other man's heart. But then, he hesitated.

" _No_ ," he thought. " _I might be willing to damage my very soul to strike down the real Sirius Black. But not this pale imitation._ " Instead of the  _Eagle Talon Claims The Heart_  Technique, Remus pulled his hand into a fist with the first and second fingers extended straight. In a quick serpentine movement, he poked the other man sharply in the forehead. Immediately, the imposter's eyes rolled back up in his head, and he fell over unconscious.

Needless to say, their leader being taken down so casually was fatal to the morale of his followers, and at a yelled command, the remaining Death Eaters apparated away (for the Dark Mark was designed to allow Death Eaters to pass through its wards). Immediately, James Potter ran forward, directing his men to secure the few Death Eaters still on hand and to begin triage for the wounded.

"And someone get me a Dementor here to deal with Sirius Black for good!" he barked. Remus turned to regard him coolly.

"I would reconsider that order, Chief Auror Potter. You should keep this one intact until he can be interrogated to see what he knows."

"We can get all we need from his followers, and there's a Kiss on sight order for all the Azkaban escapees ... whoever you are."

The corner of Remus's lips rose in faint amusement. "I am Malachi Sturgeon, the new Caretaker for Hogwarts. And the Kiss on sight order for Sirius Black is irrelevant ...  _since this man is not Sirius Black!_ "

"What?!" James exclaimed.

"Observe," the Caretaker said calmly. "Ignoring the fact that he looks far too young to have spent the last twelve years in Azkaban, this man plainly shows signs of being a partially-transformed werewolf. Even if Sirius Black had contracted lycanthropy since his escape, two months is not nearly enough time to master a partial transformation." He knelt down over the unconscious man and rifled through his pockets before withdrawing a vial and sniffing it.

"And here is your answer.  _Polyjuice potion!_  Presumably using one of Black's hairs as a base."

" _And an old hair, for some reason,_ " Remus thought to himself. " _Before he revealed his werewolf traits, he looked like Sirius from not long after our school days. Strange._ " He said none of that to James however, since he assumed his former friend would find both his presence and his skills suspicious enough. An assumption James immediately proved true.

"You're very knowledgeable for a caretaker, Mr. Sturgeon," James said cautiously.

Remus shrugged. "The Headmaster apparently saw the need for someone with better credentials when replacing Mr. Filch."

"Not to mention rather powerful and unusual fighting skills. Do you have anything to say about  _that_ , Mr. Sturgeon?"

Remus stood and regarded his ex-friend without emotion. "Only that Albus Dumbledore will reassure you that I have his full confidence. And as I have already summoned him via Patronus, he can answer ... your ..."

The man's voice trailed off as he stared past Potter at something in the distance. Potter turned as well. It looked as though there were several people engaged in aerial combat about a mile away. It was too far for him to recognize who was involved, but Remus's eyes were much sharper. Then, both men flinched as there was a loud boom from a Blasting Curse that knocked two of the flyers off their broom. Remus's eyes widened in horror.

"Who is that?" James asked in confusion before turning around sharply as the Caretaker practically growled at him.

"I  _believe_ , Chief Auror Potter," he spat with an anger that surprised the man, "that it is  _your son ... falling to his death!_ "

* * *

_**12:13 p.m.** _   
_**Near the Three Broomsticks** _

_Lily ran back towards the Three Broomsticks, herding students back towards Hogwarts as she went. She made it back to Madam Rosmerta's tavern in time to see Harry's departure ... and scream at the sight of his pursuers._

It seemed as though Harry and some girl (it was too far to say who) were flying off with three men – no, three werewolves! – in pursuit. And she was sure the one in the lead was  _Fenrir Greyback!_  She aimed her wand in a fury and screamed out her strongest blasting curse, but the brooms were too fast and her spell went wide. Frustrated, she looked around for someone who might be able to help. The windows of Quality Quidditch had been blasted in, but she was hopeless on a broom. Then, up ahead, she saw movement ... and froze.

The deserted street in front of the Three Broomsticks had been full of a strange fog that was quickly lifting, but through it, she could make out the figure of a large man who stepped out of the bar and aimed a wand at her. " _ **AVADA KEDAVRA!**_ " Instantly, she hurled herself to the ground and took aim at her attacker. The fog had cleared enough for her to see that it was another partially-transformed werewolf.

 _ **"EXPELLIARMUS!**_ " There was a flash of light, and the man's wand went flying. Then, he snarled in a fury, and he took off towards her in a run with his claws extended. Lily's eyes narrowed angrily. Without a wand, a werewolf could still hurt her if it got close enough, but she had a spell for that. " ** _LEVICORPUS!_** " Another flash of light struck the werewolf, and suddenly, he was flipped upside down and hanging from mid-air by one ankle. Lily got up and ran for the inn, summoning the werewolf's wand as she went.

As she drew closer to the door, she could hear screams coming from inside and the sound of someone – Madam Rosmerta, she thought – begging for mercy. Lily stepped into the common room with her wand already drawn, and when she saw that there were two more werewolves threatening their hostages while they argued what to do next, she didn't hesitate. " _ **EXPECTO PATRONUM!**_ " At once, a silvery fog blasted from her wand to quickly resolve into the form of a beautiful translucent doe. It danced and capered in front of the two werewolves, and for a moment, they seemed entranced by its moonsilver color ... right up until the moment the doe reared up on its hind legs and kicked one of the werewolves in the forehead with its front hooves. The werewolf screamed and fell backwards, his forehead smoking slightly.

The second werewolf came out of the entranced state then and angrily pointed his wand towards Lily. But before he could fire, another voice called out. " _ **STUPEFY!**_ " It was Gregory Goyle who had made his way down the staircase to shoot the werewolf from behind. His spell had no effect on the werewolf except to annoy him, but it was enough to cause a distraction.

 _"_ _ **LANGLOCK!**_ _"_  Lily called out, and a purple bolt struck the werewolf just as he pointed his wand again.

" _ **AVADA GAADEEEGAAH!**_ " he gargled as his tongue was suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth. For good measure, Lily sent two more Levicorpus spells, and the tongue-tied werewolf and his companion were both hanging from their ankles. A second later, she had them disarmed for good measure. Over on the staircase landing, Greg Goyle was looking at her in something approaching awe. She ignored him and looked towards the ruined fireplace, cursing as she noticed its condition.

"Dammit! We need to get help! My son Harry is on the run from three other werewolves!"

"Is Amy with him?" Greg asked urgently. Lily turned to look at him in surprise.

" _Who?_ " she inquired before the sound of an explosion distracted her from further inquiry.

* * *

_**12:15 pm** _   
_**The Tonks Clinic** _

_Then, the face inhaled, as if drawing a deep breath. Instinctively, the children leaped out of the way as a gout of fire blasted across the room. Hermione was on one side where she'd managed to pull a semi-conscious Ted away from the spreading hellfire. Ron and Theo were on the other, with the fire on one side and the seemingly impenetrable door, window and wall (which was now covered in burning words that condemned Theo as an Outcast). And then, as if things couldn't get any worse, the curtains on either side of the window burst into green flames as well._

**_"WE'RE COMING FOR YOU, AND WE'RE GOING TO BURN YOU ALIVE!"_ **

Once Hermione had Ted a reasonably safe distance from the flames, she turned back to the wall of green flames. Her face paled in terror at the daemonic faces that seemed to flicker in and out of the unholy fire. She raised her wand in a quivering hand. "AGUA...!"

" _NOOOOO!_ " Theo screamed out, interrupting her incantation. "That won't work! Only a few spells can work on Fiendfyre! And any other magic besides those will just feed the flames!"

Ron looked at Theo in surprise. "How do you know so much about Fiendfyre?!"

Theo grimaced. "My dad – ex-dad – was a Death Eater. You pick stuff up."

"Uh-huh. So what  _does_  work on Fiendfyre?"

"Nothing we could possibly cast as Third Years, but a barrier that's flame resistant can slow it down ... well, a little anyway." He yelled to Hermione on the other side of the barrier. "Hermione! Start dousing that couch on your side with Aguamenti, and then freeze it with a Glacius!"

The girl nodded quickly and began soaking the couch.

"So what, toss it onto the fire and the climb over it before it ignites?" Ron asked.

"It's the only idea I've got," Theo replied as he wiped pouring sweat from his brow. Breathing was becoming difficult for both boys. "It would take a lot of luck, but a miracle's the only way we're surviving anyway. Honestly, I don't know why we haven't been incinerated already. It's like the fire is ... deliberately taking its time. Like it wants to slow-cook us instead of just burn us up fast."

He glanced the room as more threats against him – " _DIE, OUTCAST, DIE!_ " – were still burning their way into the very walls.

"And also screw with my head, apparently. It doesn't look like there's anyone controlling the fire, so if it was just summoned and released, it should have taken out half the town by now."

"Cheery thought," Ron muttered as he undid the top button of his shirt, which was already drenched in sweat. "So it's probably too risky to climb over it even with a frozen couch on top of it." Theo nodded dejectedly. Ron closed his eyes in concentration.

" _Water flows around_ ," he whispered to himself. Then, his eyes popped open, and with a swift wand movement, he levitated a nearby bookcase over near the wall opposite the fireplace as close to the raging fire as he could without it igniting.

"Hermione!" he yelled. "When I give signal, levitate the couch and drop it on top of the fire right there!" He pointed towards where the fire met the wall, near where the bookshelf was waiting.

"So do we have a plan?" Theo asked, who was beginning to grow dizzy from the heat.

"More of a crazy gamble. Did Mr. Sturgeon ever teach you the  _Wave Crashes Against the Cliff_  Technique?"

"Yeah. I tried it once. I ended up landing on my head."

"Well, I reckon here's your chance to do it better," Ron said before yelling to Hermione. "NOW!"

Hermione flicked her wand, and the sodden and frozen couch flipped over and landed against the wall, temporarily suppressing the flames underneath. Simultaneously, Ron dropped the bookshelf so that it was leaning at an angle against the wall next to the couch. Instantly, Ron took off running for the bookshelf with Theo close behind. The two boys ran up the inclined bookshelf and then, at the top, kicked off against the wall to side flip over the couch. Theo didn't execute the move as gracefully as Ron did, but he did make it successfully to the other side of the couch before it burst into flames. The two boys quickly joined Hermione and the barely-conscious Ted.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this stuff," Theo murmured in surprise.

Hermione stared at the boys in amazement. "What? How? What?" she stammered.

" _Wave Crashes Against the Cliff_  Technique," Ron said, as if that answered any of the girl's questions. "So now that we're all together, what do we do?"

There was a terrible growl behind them as the Fiendfyre consumed the couch and then started spreading slowly across the wall in their direction. Then, a second bestial roar echoed through the house, as the kitchen area also caught fire independently.

"So much for the back door," Theo said with asperity. "Up the stairs!"

With no other options, the three children (and the levitated delirious Ted Tonks) headed up to the second floor, with the mocking laughter of the demonic flames following behind as if in deliberate pursuit.

* * *

_**12: 19 p.m.** _   
_**Outside the Tonks Clinic** _

_Robards managed to throw the witch off, but to his horror, there were now dozens of people chanting the word "Outcast" with a terrifying intensity. Not everyone nearby seemed to be affected, but those that were immediately turned on those who were not. He managed to stun three villagers before he was knocked to the ground, his wand sent flying. Then, the maddened villagers dog-piled him, punching and kicking him as they went._

Suddenly ...

" _ **FLIPPENDO**_!" cried two voices in unison, and Auror Robards was both startled and relieved when his attackers went flying away. He scrambled to his feet and limped towards his saviors, summoning his wand back with one hand while wiping blood off his face with the other. To his surprise, it was two young people: a girl and a young man. He thought he recognized the female.

"Rossum, right?" he asked. "One of the new trainees?"

"Yes sir," Emily said crisply. "And this is my ... friend, Marcus Flint." Flint nodded respectfully to the Auror.

"Well, thanks for the assistance," Robards said as he cast a Flipping Hex of his own to knock back the advancing villagers. "But how are you with Shield Charms?"

"I know all the Protego series Charms, sir," Emily said as she sent a few Stunners into the crowd.

"I, um, know the basic spell, but I can't hold them for very long," Marcus stammered.

"Well do the best you can then," the auror said. "Target them overlapping right there!" He pointed to a spot on the ground just a few feet in front of them. "Now!"

Emily and Marcus each cast their strongest shield spells as directed. Then, Robards took a deep breath and flicked his own wand madly at the shield. " ** _PROTEGO MAXIMA. FIANTO DURI. REPELLO INIMICUM._** " Suddenly, Marcus's wand started vibrating, and it seemed to give off a mild electric shock, as the small shield he and Emily had cast together shuddered, expanded, and then wrapped itself around the mob, creating a ten-foot-tall wall of force that contained the rampaging villagers. But the strain was great for a single wizard, and Gawain's knees buckled, though Marcus caught him before he fell.

"Thanks, lad. That ... takes a lot out of you. Should give us a few minutes though."

"So what now, sir?" Emily asked anxiously.

"Now? You two get to play catch." With that, Auror Robards bent down and touched his wand to the ground. Instantly, the earth beneath him rose up to form a tower of stone high enough to give him a view of the whole street ... and a clear shot those villagers who seemed unaffected by the strange madness and thus had become victims for those who were under its sway.

" ** _ACCIO WOMAN IN BLUE ROBES! ACCIO OLD MAN IN KILT! ACCIO BOY AND GIRL WHO CLIMBED THE TREE FOR SAFETY!_** "

In response to each spell, another person was yanked out of the enclosure and flew away from the mob through the air towards Robards only to get caught by a Levitation Charm from either Emily or Marcus and lowered safely to the ground. By this point, a few dozen of the rage-maddened villagers were now rushing the Protego shield and violently hurling themselves at it out of a desire to harm those on the other side who were unaffected. And all the while, they kept screaming hysterically: "OUTCAST! OUTCAST!"

Suddenly, a familiar voice drew the auror's attention. It was Alastor Moody, followed close behind by his former pupil, Nymphadora Tonks.

"ROBARDS!" bellowed the former auror. "I ordered every auror to the Post Office which is under attack by Death Eaters! What the hell is going on here?! Report!"

"Dammit, Alastor!" Robards replied irritably. "You're  _retired_! I don't have to give you reports anymore, let alone follow your  _orders_!"

"No, but you will anyway. You'll have enough sense to do what I say because you'll realize I'm probably  _right_. Now what's going on?"

Robards rolled his eyes at the old man's (usually justifiable) arrogance. "Some kind of psychomagical effect emanating from the Tonks Clinic! I was actually on my way to the Post Office when it went off. It's causing some kind of violent madness among the affected townspeople!"

" _What?!_ " Nymphadora gasped at that news while her mentor surveyed the street.

"But not all of them, I see," Moody replied thoughtfully. As he spoke, he withdrew his wand into its holster and then pulled a small wooden rod from an inside pocket. It looked vaguely wand-like but was thicker and less delicate. He held the rod up to his lips and whispered something, and suddenly, the rod became a five-foot-long staff covered in obscure runes and markings. As Robards began to sputter, Moody tapped the staff twice times to the ground, and suddenly, he was lifted up on a stone tower that rose out of the earth like the one Robards had transfigured.

"That's ... that's a bloody  _battle stave_!" the auror exclaimed. "There is no way that's legal for a civilian to own!"

Moody barked out a laugh. "Take it up with the Chief Auror. Wonderboy Potter signed off on the paperwork three days before I retired. You should probably be aware that your boss never reads anything that someone he trusts puts in front of him before he sticks his autograph on it."

With that, Moody began to spin the staff around his body in a complicated pattern before finally pointing it towards the center of the enclosure. " _ **SOMNIUM HORRIBILUS!**_ " There was a wave of magical energy that rolled over the raging mob, and almost instantly, the people trapped inside the ward all fell to the ground unconscious. Soon after, the twin pillars bearing Robards and Moody aloft sank back down into the earth while the shield-ward was allowed to dissipate.

"Well, that's one problem solved," Robards said.

"And another one started!" exclaimed Marcus. " _Look_!" The boy gestured further down the street behind them, where a fist fight had broken out among several citizens outside the wards. And most of them were also yelling "OUTCAST!" at the top of their lungs as well.

"Dammit!" Moody swore. "Whatever it is, it's spreading!"

"Well whatever's causing it seems to be centered on the Tonks Clinic," Robards said as he pointed towards the building that was still illuminated by an eerie light and giant floating runes.

"What the hell is that rune?!" exclaimed Tonks, who only noticed the strange markings floating in the air around her home after Robards' ward had fallen. "My father's still in there!" She advanced towards the clinic only to stagger back in surprise when a set of first floor windows exploded with a blast of green fire.

"Merlin preserve us!" Robards exclaimed in horror. "That's  _Fiendfyre_!"

" _NOOO_!" Tonks screamed as she started to run towards the door only to be grabbed by Moody and Robards.

"No, girl!" Moody ordered. "You can't rush into a building burning with hellfire! It's suicide!"

"But my father's in there! And Theo was bringing some of his friends over for lunch! They must be trapped inside!"

"It's too late, child!" Robards said solemnly.

"No it's not," Moody answered, his eye whirling madly. "I see four people in there. A man and three children. The man looks hurt, but they're all safe up on the second floor. Well, alive, anyway. Hardly safe though."

Tonks looked at her burning home in panic for a few seconds before she took a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could. " _IIII-RISSSS_!"

Barely a second later, there was a soft pop as Iris, the Tonks's house elf appeared beside her.

"Miss Dora! You's shouldn't be calling Iris like that! Iris was with the Doctor Mistress Andi who is..." Iris's scolding faded away as she saw what was happening to her master's clinic and home.

"Goodness gracious!" she exclaimed softly.

"Iris," Tonks said urgently. "Dad is still in there! Along with Theo and two of his friends! Can you do anything to help them?"

Iris shook her head fearfully. "Miss Dora, something has been done to the wards. Something  _evil_! Iris does not know if she can pass through!"

Tonks knelt down next to the diminutive creature. "Iris, please. It's ... it's  _my dad!_ " she begged with tears in her eyes.

Iris looked up at the girl she'd helped raise since infancy. Then, she closed her eyes and scrunched her face up into a mask of intense concentration. After a few seconds, she gave a gasp of pain and then popped away.

* * *

_**12:20 p.m.** _   
_**The Ministry of Magic  
London** _

Dumbledore had been in a meeting with Minister Fudge, Barty Crouch Sr., Ludo Bagman and several other notable Ministry officials to discuss details pertaining to security for the following summer's Quiddich World Cup and some other international events to be held at Hogwarts later in the year when he received Remus's Patronus message: " _Hogsmeade is under attack and the Dark Mark has been seen!_ "

Less than a minute later, alarms were sounding throughout the Ministry, and the Auror Corp mobilized only to realize that all floo connection to Hogsmeade had been cut off. To his mounting frustration, Albus realized that he'd wasted too much time trying to provide an alternate route for the assembled aurors. They could not travel directly to Hogsmeade (whether by floo, apparition, or portkey), they could not travel to Hogwarts (because of the castle's on defenses against intruding aurors – a fact that infuriated Fudge), and there were no places near enough to the site of the attack but outside the range of the Dark Mark that anyone knew well enough to allow for portkeys or direct apparation.

" _And naturally_ ," Albus thought ruefully, " _this would also happen just a few days after Fawkes's last burning day!_ " Finally, it was decided that a force of a dozen aurors would travel by floo to the Ministry field office in Edinburgh and from there fly disillusioned by broom to Hogwarts, at least half-an-hour's journey. In the meantime, Albus would floo directly back to his office and do what he could. As he passed through into his office, he gave a regretful glance towards his tiny familiar resting on his perch before he was distracted by the sound of some nearby explosion. The Headmaster rushed to the nearest window with a view of Hogsmeade, almost certain that he was already too late to prevent the latest disaster.

* * *

_**12:21 p.m.** _   
_**Inside the Tonks Clinic** _

The three children had managed to get Ted Tonks (who was still moaning in delirious agony) up to the second floor landing when the man started convulsing. The heat was unbearable as they made their way into the master bedroom where Ron and Theo laid Ted on the floor and tried to hold him down. On the far wall was a wide double-window behind a heavy king-sized sleigh bed. Hermione tried to blast the window again, this time with the Glass-Shattering Curse, but once more, the window reformed itself instantly.

"What ... what do we do?" said Theo, whose own vision was starting to swim from the terrible heat. From somewhere below, they heard a terrible mocking laughter.

"I ... I'm sorry, Theo," Hermione said despairingly as she looked down at Ted Tonks whose face was a mask of agony. From what little she knew of Fiendfyre, even seemingly minor burns were usually fatal. "I don't ... I don't know what to do next."

Ron grimaced as he and the other two struggled to hold down the Healer who was now writhing in agony. And he couldn't help but think back to the lessons his father had tried to teach him and his siblings all their lives. " _Do what's right instead of what's easy_ ," he said softly.

"Eh? What was that?" Theo asked, but Ron ignored him. He looked to Hermione instead.

"Hermione, I'm about to cast a spell. After I do, I want you to count to three. And then, I want you to  _slap me_  hard across the face. Okay?"

"What?!" she said in confusion. "Why?"

"Because if you don't, I'll probably die. And then, Jim will kill me." With that oddly paradoxical statement, he pointed his wand towards Ted's burnt and blackened hand.

 _ **"SSSSAMSSSSARA,**_ " he hissed softly.

* * *

When Iris arrived in the living room of what had been her home, she nearly spat in anger. It had been physically painful to pass through the corrupted wards – no elf not attuned to the dwelling could have even done so – but that was nothing compared to seeing the damage done to the interior by the raging (if slow-burning) hellfire. She knew at once that the hellfire was not normal, not even by the standards typically wrought by the Fiendfyre Curse. This fire did not burn with abandon but with intent. It wanted to kill young Theo No-Name but slowly so that it would have time to work its foul business on the good people of Hogsmeade.

And unlike normal Fiendfyre, this version was powered not by the weak hatred of mortal wizards, a hatred sullied by the complexities of the human condition and which was so often indistinct from love. No, this hellfire had been summoned by an invocation of True Hate. The Hate that could only be found in The Other Place. The purest Hate that was a perfect distillation of the urge to hurt, to kill, to annihilate, completely devoid of any other possible emotion or impulse. The  _Singular_  Hate. It was a Hate that was not meant for this world.

Aware of the house elf's presence, a huge column of green flame rose up and formed a terrible face that snarled at Iris almost hungrily. She wrinkled her nose at it in contempt and then popped away before it could surge forward to consume her. She was saddened by the loss of what had been her home, but she knew it was beyond saving, and even if it were not so, she had different orders at the moment. Her family needed her.

* * *

Theo and Hermione both gasped in shock as Ron touched the now-glowing tip of his wand to Ted's hand. There was a flash of light, and Ted's body went rigid, as did Ron's. Hermione stared in confusion, but then she remembered what Ron had said and slapped him as hard as she could. He fell back and banged his head against the foot of the bed. Ted relaxed. His hand was still burned but no longer unnaturally so, and his convulsions ended. He seemed to be merely unconscious now.

" _Whoof_! Bloody hell, Hermione! I said slap me, not dislocate my jaw!"

"Sorry," she apologized. "But, um, did you just ... you know?" Beside her, Theo just stared in absolute amazement at the second Gryffindor Parselmouth he'd met.

"Yeah, about that," Ron said uneasily. "I'd appreciate it if you two kept that to yourselves. I mean, if we don't all burn to death in the next few minutes. Anyway, Ted's not in danger of dying. Well, except for Fiendfyre. But I don't know if we should wake him yet."

"You should not," Iris calmly interrupted, though her sudden arrival still caused the three children to jump in fright. "Although your quick action has saved Doctor Master Tonks from death, he is still weak and has entered into a healing coma."

There was a roar from the hallway behind her. Theo wasn't sure, but it sounded almost like some terrible beast had called out his name, and there was a sickly green light that illuminated the corridor as the flames reached up to the second floor. Iris snapped her fingers and the door to the hallway slammed shut. With a second snap, Ted's unconscious body lifted itself off the floor and floated over onto the bed.

"Iris thanks you all for what you done for my master. You are all very special wizardlings. Iris hopes you all know that. Now! Quick like a bunny! All of you get onto the bed with Doctor Master Tonks!"

The three children did as the house elf ordered. Iris snapped her fingers again, and several items summoned from elsewhere in the house landed in Theo's hands: a few healing potions presumably meant for Ted; framed certificates identifying Ted and Andi as Master Healers; and finally a thick scrapbook. On the front of it was a moving photo of a deliriously happy Ted and Andi holding up a newborn babe with pink hair as a happy Iris stood beside them. The words "The Tonks Family - Ted, Andi, Nymphadora, and Iris" floated over their heads.

Then, the bedroom door exploded off its hinges, and all three children screamed in terror. For at the threshold of the room stood a monster. It was a misshapen humanoid, roughly nine feet tall and four feet across, with long arms that ended in wicked talons. And it was made of Fiendfyre.

" _BUUUURRRRNN YOU!_ " it roared as it took a step into the room, simultaneously shattering and igniting the door frame as it forced its way through. Before it could take a another step, Iris snapped her fingers once more, and the bed lifted up into the air. At first, to the children's horror, it flew closer to the fire monster, and they screamed even louder. But even as the creature reached out for Theo No-Name, the bed reversed course and blasted out through the window to crash-land on the street below. Ted and the three children were bumped about somewhat rudely, but the thick mattress absorbed the impact, and they were none the worse for wear from the fall.

Inside the master bedroom, the windows resealed immediately after the bed's departure. The fire creature roared its anger.

" _YOU HAVE NOT RESCUED THE OUTCAST, LAR IRIS! YOU HAVE ONLY DRAWN OUT MY HUNT AND MADE ME STRONGER FOR IT!_ "

The monster turned on Iris and advanced towards her, but the tiny house elf showed no fear. This was not true Fiendfyre, after all. It was a manifestation of True Hate which was fueled not by mortal anger but by the corrupted wards of the clinic, wards that would not survive the destruction of the clinic itself. And as a house elf bonded with this place, destroying the Tonks Clinic was certainly within her power. Alas, she could only do so from within the building itself.

The heat from the approaching creature poured over Iris, but she simply closed her eyes and smiled. She could see it now, the shape of her ending. She had done as Young Mistress Dora had commanded. She had saved the girl's father. She had saved the three little wizardlings who had protected him until she could arrive. She would even save the poor deluded wizards outside who had become enthralled by the power of True Hate. She had done her duty to the last.

She was a good elf.

When the fire demon's hand was less than a foot away, Iris snapped her fingers a final time, and the supporting walls of the Tonks Clinic imploded. From outside, it looked as thought the entire building simply collapsed in on itself. There was a sudden and terrifying surge of green fire that erupted from the ruins that vaguely resembled a giant grasping hand accompanied by a roar of pain and frustrated rage. Then, as swiftly as they'd come, the flames receded and then disappeared, leaving behind nothing but smoldering ruins.

Nymphadora Tonks ran over to the bed that had miraculously survived being flung out of the burning building, with Moody and the others close behind. She saw that the children were fine and that her father was unconscious but alive. Then, she looked around wildly and cried out. "IRIS! IRIS!" There was no sign of her family's house elf. She turned back to Theo, who was still clutching the scrapbook, the only memento of the elf who had been a part of Dora's family since before she was born. Tears rolled down the boy's cheeks.

Their reunion was disrupted by the sound of a terrible explosion from somewhere near Hogwarts. All of them turned to look in that direction, but all they could see were several figures on brooms, two of which seemed to have been knocked off. Only Moody's magical eye could tell who the falling wizards were.

" _Potter_ ," he whispered in horror at the sight of the boy he'd practically taken as an apprentice falling to his death.

* * *

_**12:29 p.m.** _   
_**About 2000 feet high ...** _

_Fenrir snarled as he pointed his wand up in the Firebolt's general direction and bellowed the incantation for a modified Bombarda. The spell shot up past and to the right of Harry and Amy before detonating in a shockwave just as their broom was even with it. The wave of force hit Harry like a wrecking ball and stunned him for an instant before he regained his senses. Immediately, the boy dilated his perceptions – Thump-thump – to take stock of his circumstances._

_They weren't good. Now Amy was screaming. She was also about ten feet away from to his left, and the pursuing werewolf had altered course to catch her. His stolen Firebolt was about ten feet to his right but flying away from him in a lazy spiral. His holly and phoenix wand was only five feet in front of him but might as well have been back in his room for all the good that did. And the ground?_

_That was less than 2000 feet away and closing fast._

_**Thump-thump – 2000 feet.** _

As the reality of his dire situation became apparent, Harry was briefly distracted by how calm he felt before realizing that he had instinctively used his Occlumency to temporarily shut down his fear response. Even at his maximum dilation, he guessed he had less than a minute of subjective time to figure something out before he hit the ground, so panic was the last thing he needed. While his wand was spinning farther and farther away, his dilated senses perceived it as doing so relatively slowly, and the rush of air that accompanied his fall was a deceptively gentle but cool breeze. Even the terrified screams of Amy Wilkes were distorted and sounded deep and slow to his ears, like a recording that had been slowed down.

Harry's first and most obvious thought was quickly assessed and just as quickly discarded. While he had a portkey in the form of a toe ring on his right foot, the instructions he'd been given on portkey usage made it very clear how incredibly dangerous it was to use a portkey while falling from any significant height as there was a strong likelihood of materializing halfway through the floor at the destination. Granted, the portkey would take him straight to the St. Mungo's Emergency Ward, but even the healers there wouldn't be able to do much if a large enough chuck of his body was splinched off and landed somewhere on a lower level of the hospital. And anyway, even if the portkey wasn't instantly fatal, using it at this point meant leaving Amy Wilkes to whatever fate Greyback intended for her, something Harry refused to even consider.

His next thought was to summon his wand  _wandlessly_. Granted, his previous attempts to do so had resulted in hundreds of failed attempts without a single quiver of motion from the wand. Of course, being in fear for his life might give Harry the impetus to finally succeed, but he would need to end the dilation to attempt it. Since he would likely only have a single chance to summon the wand before the  _splat_ , he chose to wait before making one last all-or-nothing attempt. In the meantime, mindful of what Alastor Moody had said earlier, Harry opened up a secondary thought-stream dedicated to remembering everything he could about the Summoning Charm while his first mind worked on other options.

" _Okay_ ," he thought quickly but not quite frantically, " _time for a quick brain-storming session. I can't use any spells I know without a wand. So what else is there? Apparition? I did apparently do that once a few years ago with accidental magic. But usually accidental magic stops happening after you get a wand. Something Lucius said last May about how letting a wand choose you represents a magical promise to only use magic in the proper manner. I guess it might kick in since it's a life-or-death situation, but it's hardly something I can realistically hope for, let alone actively make happen. And it still has the problem of leaving Amy to the werewolves!_ "

_**Thump-thump – 1800 feet.** _

Harry frowned mentally at the sensation of his heart beating slowly but not near slowly enough under the circumstances, a constant reminder of how little time he had to pull off a miracle.

" _Focus, Potter!_ " he thought furiously. " _What else can you do without a wand? The animagus transformation doesn't require a wand does it? No that's stupid. It takes years to learn to be an animagus. Well, unless you're a million-to-one freak of nature that can do it on the first try, but since nothing in your entire life has ever suggested that you're a natural animagus, it's kind of silly to think you're just going to learn how in the next six seconds! And anyway, there's absolutely no reason to think your hypothetical animagus form is even something that could fly!_ "

Frustrated that the "brainstorming session" had come to an end without any useful ideas, Harry was further dismayed by how slow his secondary thought-stream was in reviewing his collection of Accio Wand memories. At the current rate of review, it might take hours to recall every one of those memories. Morbidly, he wondered if some part of him in the afterlife might be stuck thinking about the Summoning Charm even after he was dead. In desperation, he opened up a third thought-stream dedicated to wandless magic in hopes that it might double the rate of his memory review. To his pleasant surprise, it did not. Rather, if anything, it seemed to  _square_  it, and for a brief instant, Harry nearly lost the dilation as his mind reeled under the onslaught of memories, not just of his prior efforts at wandless casting but of everything he'd ever been told on the subject.

_Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand.  
Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand._

_"Learning to cast a spell wandlessly requires you to link one of these spells directly to your core with  
a psychic strand that represents the sum total of your experience with casting that particular spell."_

_Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand.  
Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand._

_"Even if you should one day master wandless magic in some form, it will still be based  
on your sense memory of casting the same spells with a wand in your hand."_

_Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand.  
Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand. Accio wand._

_**Thump-thump – 1600 feet.** _

As the ground grew nearer, a mad and desperate idea began to form. Thus far, Harry had never even attempted to maintain more than three sub-brains at once. He'd never had need to, the prospect seemed too daunting, and perhaps most importantly, Snape had indicated that it would be highly painful and possibly physically dangerous. But in the grand scheme of things, Harry reckoned that it couldn't possibly be more painful and dangerous than falling to his death from a great height. So he braced himself and opened a fourth channel. It actually wasn't as painful as he'd expected, though it did trigger perhaps the worst ice cream headache he'd ever experienced. Prepared for the pain, Harry held onto his dilation, and with his newest thought-stream, he focused on the arithmantic and runic implications of the Summoning Charm.

 _Accio wand._  
Two words. Nine letters total. Late Etruscan-Early Roman origin.  
Accio. Five letters. Three syllables. Latin root. Wand. Four letters. One word.  
Derived from speaker's native tongue. Accio wand. Base wand pattern of seven  
Akkadian cuneiform symbols. Arithmantic summation of 2.9/5.3./4.1/7 = 31.  
Accio wand.

Even with four active minds, Harry still did not feel that he was ready to try a last ditch summoning attempt, and yet, he hesitated to open a fifth thought-stream. For one thing, it seemed presumptuous that a thirteen-year-old boy who'd been studying Occlumency for less than three years might try matching a feat that (as far as Snape knew) had only ever been attempted by the legendary Werner Von Mises. For another, the experience had apparently been so painful and debilitating to Von Mises that he never tried it again.

_**Thump-thump – 1400 feet.** _

Then again, as far as the boy knew, Von Mises had never been as motivated to push the boundaries of the psychic arts as Harry was right now. The Slytherin's heart had already beat five times. Seven full beats would be just as fatal as hitting the ground or having an Occlumency-triggered aneurysm while en route. No one was close enough to save him. And no one else was close enough to save Amy before the werewolf grabbed her and apparated away to whatever fate awaited her. Harry summoned up his Gryffindor side. He would do the impossible and learn to summon his wand in the next few seconds or he would die knowing he'd done all he could. With that cheery thought, he steeled himself for the pain Snape had warned of and opened up a fifth thought-stream.

_"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!"_

It was so much worse than he'd expected. It really did feel like someone was stabbing him in the back of the head with an red-hot icepick. Only through a supreme act of willpower was Harry able to maintain both his dilation and his multiple thought-streams as virtually everything he knew about the Summoning Charm and wandless magic in general roared through his head like a typhoon.

_acowandacciowandacciowand2.9/5.3./4.1=31acciowandacciowand elevenincheshollyphoenixfeatheracciowandacciowandacciowand psychicstrandsconnectcoretospellacciowandacciowandacciowand Akkadianrunesacciowandacciowandsensememoryacciowand  
curiousmisterpotterverycuriousindeedacciowandacciowandacciowand amyisscreaminggottosavehermadeapromiseacciowandacciowand sevenisthemostpowerfulmagicalnumberacciowandacciowand_

To Harry's sudden alarm, there were now three wands spinning in the air in front of him, and he was terribly confused as to where the other two came from until he realized that it was simply blurred vision. He also detected a strong scent of copper in the air and suspected that if he lived long enough to release his dilation, his nose would start bleeding profusely. " _One problem at a time,_ " he thought as he prepared to go where Von Mises himself had feared to tread.

_**Thump-thump – 1200 feet.** _

Harry opened a sixth thought-stream and then screamed within his mind. When he was older and had actually been subjected to the Cruciatus Curse, he would nevertheless believe in absolute seriousness that it had not been quite as bad as having six brains operating simultaneously, all of them shouting random memories and facts relating to the Summoning Charm in his head. The only description of the experience he could articulate was that it felt as if his brain had somehow caught fire within his skull. A shudder passed through his entire body, and Harry suspected that if he had not been dilating, that shudder would instead have been a violent full-body spasm or possibly some kind of fit.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc  
ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc  
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii  
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww  
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn  
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

_**Thump-thump – 1000 feet.** _

Afraid he would drop the dilation because of the pain if he hesitated any longer (or that the dilation itself would kill him), Harry pressed forward and opened up one final thought-stream: a seventh mind, seven being the most powerful number in Arithmancy. And just like that, the pain suddenly ...  _stopped_. Indeed, all sensation stopped. Amy was gone. The broom was gone. The werewolves were gone. The  _world_  was gone. Every possible distraction was gone. As far as the boy could tell, even his own physical body was gone, though his mind, his sense of self multiplied by seven, remained. The entire universe shrank until it was just the four of them. Harry Potter and his wand and the two words that connected them together. And in that instant, Harry Potter knew the spell.

He.  _Knew_. It.

_**Thump-... – 800 feet.** _

Harry released the dilation at the last second before it could kill him, and the world resumed its normal pace. He also ended the partitioning of his mind, and the seven thought-streams collapsed down to one. The boy focused all of his attention on his wand, and with utter serenity and immaculate precision, he thought two words.

_accio wand  
_

Instantly, the wand snapped into his waiting hand so forcefully that it stung, and for a brief horrifying instant, he almost dropped it again. Instead, he grasped it tightly and whirled his body around in mid-air, screaming out incantations as he did. " ** _ACCIO FIREBOLT! ACCIO AMY WILKES!_** " By now, the Firebolt was more than 100 feet away when it suddenly froze before rocketing back towards him. Amy was closer, and the girl was yanked away from the werewolf barely a second before he could grab her. With a well-practiced flick of his wrist, Harry retracted his wand into its holster so that he could catch her with both arms. With some difficulty, he managed to turn her around so that she was grabbing him around the neck as if holding onto a life preserver. At no point, did the girl stop screaming in mortal terror. To Harry, the world was an agonizing blur, but he could still sense the general direction of everything around him – the Firebolt, the werewolf, the ground. Legilimency, he assumed.

_**600 feet** _

Harry shifted Amy with his left arm while reaching out with his right to snag the summoned Firebolt. Bringing the broom in close, he held it against Amy's back so that he put both hands on the shaft. The impact of the broom caused the two children to start spinning wildly in the air as they fell, and on one rotation, Harry noticed that the pursuing werewolf was now speeding towards them, presumably bent on snatching Amy out of his arms before they crashed. Desperately, he tried to maneuver the broom so he could mount it in mid-air.

_**300 feet** _

After a mad scramble, he finally had the broom properly between his legs. When the pursuer was less than a foot away, Harry kicked the Firebolt into motion, heading straight for the ground. He and Amy were still in a freefall and now accelerating, but at least they were no longer tumbling and were a little bit farther away from the werewolf.

_**100 feet** _

Harry grit his teeth and grasped the handle with both hands as tightly as he could, and with a furious bellow, he wrenched it up with all his might. At less than ten feet from impact, he finally had the broom horizontal to the ground. And just like that, Randolph Spudmore's Redistributed Gravity Charm lived up to its name and reputation as the Firebolt converted Harry's (literally) terminal velocity into horizontal thrust and the broom shot off towards the Forbidden Forest. Now, Amy and Harry were both screaming, the latter because he now realized he would have to navigate through the thick and deadly forest despite having extremely blurred vision and being on the verge of passing out. Briefly, they were joined by a third, deeper scream that was abruptly cut short as the pursuing werewolf slammed into the ground at almost 100 miles per hour. As Harry and Amy entered the woods, the two remaining werewolves watched slack-jawed.

A beat passed before Stavros finally blurted out what was on Fenrir's mind as well. "Who the hell _is this kid_?!"

At that, Greyback finally shook off his amazement and snarled. "After him, you fool!" The two remaining werewolves rocketed towards the forest in pursuit.

Seconds later, Harry was still trying to navigate his way through the Forbidden Forest toward Hogwarts. Amy had finally stopped screaming and had released her death grip on Harry, but she was still obviously terrified. She did however let out a brief shriek when spellfire shattered a branch just a few feet away from them. Harry hissed in anger and sped up as much as he dared.

"Why aren't we going faster?!" Amy exclaimed.

"B-because we ... we're s-still in the w-wrong g-g-gear for carrying a p-passenger," he stammered even as he jerked the broom down to duck under a low-hanging branch just before it shattered from the werewolves' attack. "Also ... I th-think I hurt m'brain."

At that, Amy finally took a good look at the boy who'd saved her and was shocked at his appearance. Harry was deathly pale and shaking violently. There was blood covering the bottom of his face from a nosebleed, and his eyes were glassy, unfocused, and so bloodshot that they were practically crimson. She couldn't imagine how he was even keeping the broom up at all, let alone dodging spells and tree limbs at the same time. Amy looked around wildly before sticking her arm out to point off to the left.

"THAT WAY!" she ordered even as more spells flew past them. At this point, Harry was too exhausted and pained to even argue, and the broom veered sharply off to the left with the werewolves in pursuit. Ten seconds later, Harry suddenly regretted blindly following Amy's directions when he had to quickly jerk the broomstick up to fly over a thick net of spider webbing. As he proceeded into a region that was increasingly thick with such webs, his eyes widened in horror.

"That was ...! Wha ...! This is the way to the ACROMANTULA COLONY!" he bellowed.

"I KNOW!" replied Amy as she shifted her grip on Harry while drawing out her own wand.

"WHY ARE WE GOING INTO THE ACROMANTULA COLONY?!"

"BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW ANY SPELLS THAT CAN HURT WEREWOLVES!" she yelled in response before pointing her wand towards some approaching trees. " ** _ARANIA EXUMAI!_** "

In response to her incantation and a sharp flick of her wand, a 500-pound acromantula flew out of the tree in an arc over the two to land between them and their pursuers. She fired the same spell off two more times, each with more force and each landing closer to the werewolves. Greyback actually had to swerve to dodge one of them. Finally, on her fourth attempt, the spell struck true. " ** _ARANIA EXUMAI!_** " An enormous spider nearly five feet in diameter flew through the air to land right on top of Stavros. The werewolf let out a gargling scream as he was knocked off his broom and down to the forest floor. The acromantula that landed on him chittered madly and tried to bite him even as the werewolf tore at the creature with his claws. Soon other acromantulas came out of the brush, drawn by the noise and the smell of fresh prey.

With a furious snarl, Fenrir doubled back, blasted the spider off his packmate's body, and then swooped down to grab Stavros before heading back the way they came. He hoped the younger werewolf would keep his mouth shut when Peter inevitably chewed them both out for somehow losing the primary target to a rescue by the secondary target. If Stavros were to anger Pettigrew enough, it might be less painful for all concerned to have left him for the spiders.

Seconds later, Harry's Firebolt blasted out of the Forest, dipped up to clear Hagrid's hut, and finally came down to what would have been a perfect landing had Harry not finally lost control ... and consciousness. While the two came down at a controlled rate of speed, he blacked out briefly while landing and the two ended up crashing and rolling several feet across the muddy field. Mercifully, they had been going slow enough to avoid injuries, but Harry still looked terrible. Amy quickly pulled herself up, raised her wand, and fired off some fireworks to attract attention and help. Soon, a dozen or so students, including several prefects, were headed their way.

"Harry! Harry!" she exclaimed while shaking the boy. "Are you okay!"

"Fine, fine," he mumbled. "Just ... fried my ... brain-meats." With that he giggled softly at his own joke without even opening his eyes. "Ya'know ... any landin' ya can walk away from 'n all that."

"In case you haven't noticed, you're not walking!" she hissed angrily. "You're a maniac to have done all that!"

"Couldn't be helped," he slurred. "Had'ta save'ya. Made a promise."

The girl shook her head in confusion. "A promise?! Why would you do something that stupid?! And to who?!"

His eyes slowly fluttered open. They still looked blood red, especially against his ghastly pale skin. Despite his awful condition, he gave the girl a dopey grin. "Ken'you keep s-s-s-ecret?" he whispered.

Amy nodded nervously. At Harry's instruction, she bent down and listened to what he whispered in her ear. Then, she jerked back up even as prefects arrived to administer first aid and transport Harry to the Infirmary. As everyone else left, the girl still sat in the mud, watching as Harry Potter was carried off to safety while she absorbed all the shocks the day had brought her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks and mutual congratulations to all my wonderful fans and supporters. The Discord page has broken 400 followers, but more importantly, POS now has more than 10,000 followers, on FF.Net! I honestly never imagined back in 2016 that this would turn into such a thing. I only hope POS continues to bring you all enjoyment.


	23. Chaos in Hogsmeade (conclusion)

_**CHAPTER 22: Chaos in Hogsmeade (conclusion)** _

_**From the Daily Prophet – Special Edition** _

**THE DEATH EATER MENACE – DAY 91**

**SIRIUS BLACK LEADS WEREWOLVES AND**  
**DEATH EATERS IN ASSAULT ON HOGSMEADE!**

**SIX DEAD! DOZENS INJURED!**

**BOY-WHO-LIVED AND MINISTER OF MAGIC BOTH**  
**NARROWLY ESCAPE ASSASSINATION!**

**SPECIAL EYEWITNESS REPORT BY RITA SKEETER ON PAGE 2.  
**

**A Conference Room at the Ministry of Magic**  
**31 October 1993**  
**6:00 p.m.**

Cornelius Fudge snorted at the newspaper headline. Trust the Daily Prophet to move with lightning speed just when he wanted them to take the day off. He had left the Three Broomsticks by floo not ten minutes before the start of the attack, but there was never a moment he'd been in any real danger. Still, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to have the public concerned for his safety. Every little bit of goodwill helped.

In the debriefing room with him were Chief Auror James Potter and his senior staff, DMLE Director Amelia Bones and her senior staff, Senior Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge ... and an incredibly nondescript man in incredibly nondescript robes who sat in the corner taking notes on behalf of the Unspeakables. Technically, this meeting was outside Umbridge's official portfolio, but the woman had proven herself quite indispensable to Fudge since the Death Eater crisis began, and, particularly relevant to the immediate circumstances, she seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge about werewolves.

"Alright, let's get on with it," Fudge said. "I'd like to start with your report, James. I know you're eager to get back to Hogwarts and check on your son. If it's possible to finish up early with your business, I'm not averse to you sneaking out before the end of the meeting."

"I appreciate that, Minister," James replied tersely. "But if it's all the same, I'll stay here as long as needed. Lily will be contacting me by Patronus if there's any change in Harry's condition."

With that, Potter opened up the folder in front of him and quickly summarized the information on the Hogsmeade attack that had been collected so far.

"The attack commenced shortly after noon. It was a three-pronged attack. The largest group consisted of eleven individuals wearing homemade Death Eater-styled attire who attacked and destroyed the Hogsmeade Post Office with Blasting Curses. Out of that group, three were killed, but the rest escaped. None of the dead were identified as having been affiliated with You-Know-Who during the last war, though they all had prior criminal records. They appear to have been recruited specifically for this attack. More importantly, we got their leader, a man Polyjuiced to look like Sirius Black but who was actually revealed to be Janos Skorzeny, a Polish werewolf who belongs to Fenrir Greyback's pack. In addition to this incident, Skorzeny's wanted in several European jurisdictions for dozens of counts of murder, terrorism, and insurrection. At the moment, we're keeping him on ice in a DMLE detention cell until we're ready to begin interrogation. I don't know how much we'll get from him since werewolves are resistant to Veritaserum and Legilimency, but it's worth a shot."

"Do we know why Skorzeny was Polyjuiced to look like Black?" asked Director Bones. "And a young Sirius Black at that?"

"Not yet. Our current working theory is that Black is still recuperating from Azkaban and is too weak to engage in public activities, so the people who freed him are using Polyjuice to cause confusion and panic among the wizarding populace. We have no idea why the fake Sirius Black looked so young. Perhaps a defect in the Polyjuice Potion."

James flipped a page in his notes. "The second prong consisted of Fenrir himself along with five other werewolves who attacked the Three Broomsticks with the apparent goal of kidnaping the young fiancée of Tiberius Nott, a girl named Amaryllis Wilkes who is also the only offspring of the late Erasmus and Linnea Wilkes, both marked Death Eaters. The werewolves' goal in capturing the Wilkes girl is as yet unknown. We assume ransom at this point. However, we did manage to capture three of them. A fourth was killed during an attempt to pursue my son Harry after he successfully rescued Wilkes from their initial attack."

"The third prong of the attack was the most mysterious. It seems that persons unknown using an as-yet-unidentified curse destroyed the Tonks Clinic with some modified form of Fiendfyre. A side effect of the curse also caused an outbreak of uncontrolled violence among nearby villagers. That's actually where most of the casualties came from. Five civilians were inside the Post Office when it blew, though thankfully no Hogwarts students, and one of the auror trainees on-site was killed in the subsequent spellfire exchange. But most of the non-fatal injuries were simply the result of a small riot that broke out near the Clinic."

"If you would, get me a copy of the file on the trainee who was killed," Fudge said quietly. "I'd like to write a letter of condolence to the family."

James nodded and made a note of the request.

"Do we know what sort of curse was used?" Bones inquired.

"Not one I've ever heard of," the Chief Auror answered while glancing towards the nondescript man taking notes. "Unspeakable Croaker was ... evasive when I asked the same question."

With that remark, all eyes turned towards the man who simply looked up with a bland expression. "The investigation by the Department of Mysteries is ongoing," he said simply and without further elaboration.

* * *

**_Meanwhile in the Hogwarts Infirmary_ **

Severus Snape scowled angrily around the room and reminded himself of why he hated Halloween. " _Werewolves_ ," he thought ruefully. " _During a Hogsmeade Weekend! Obscene!_ "

Thankfully, he had already completed his Legilimency probe of Rodolphus Lestrange by the time of the attack. The psychic interrogation of Lestrange had yielded little they didn't already know. The chalice which Voldemort had given to Bellatrix was definitely the Hufflepuff Cup and was almost certainly a horcrux, but Rodolphus knew nothing of her security arrangements for it. Apparently, while Bellatrix's brainwashing compelled her to submit to Rodolphus (and occasionally Rabastan) in all sorts of sordid ways, not even he could command her to reveal what the Dark Lord had ordered hidden. It appeared that Snape would have no choice but to legilimize Bellatrix herself despite all the risks that entailed. The conspirators agreed that he would make the attempt over the Christmas break and spend the time between now and then reviewing Rookwood's Occlumency text for clues as to Bellatrix's psychic defenses.

The only other significant information gleaned from Rodolphus's memories pertained to the Barty Crouch Jr. matter. The most interesting detail was that none of the Lestranges knew of Crouch's personal involvement in the Longbottom attack until their trial. Rodolphus only knew the man under the codename Mr. January, as he was part of a different Death Eater cell. And in the guise of Mr. January, Crouch contacted the Lestranges on November 2, 1981 to propose the assault on Longbottom Manor for which he was able to provide a warding bypass. He was wearing Death Eater apparel when he arrived to join the attack, and he remained masked until after his arrest. Lucius and Regulus each proposed to investigate that issue the best they could between now and Christmas. Crouch had claimed innocence at trial, but his hysterical denials offered no explanation for the Dark Mark on his arm.

But those concerns fell to the side when Albus's phoenix Patronus unexpectedly arrived to deliver the news about Hogsmeade and to ask Snape to return at once to Hogwarts where Madam Pomfrey would likely need some assistance. Only one student had actually been injured in the Hogsmeade attack – and naturally it was one of the Potter Twins – but a great many students had been present at the time, and Pomfrey would likely need far more Calming Draughts than were on hand.

Hours later, his emergency brewing complete, Snape convened in the infirmary where Sensible Potter was lying in bed comatose. Also present were Dumbledore, Lily Potter and her Other Son, the Sensible Potter's solicitor, and (surprisingly) Alastor Moody and Malachi Sturgeon. Upon arrival, Moody gave the former Death Eater a brief glare of disdain but said nothing. The Caretaker, on the other hand, gave a look that oddly implied a sense of familiarity even though Snape had exchanged barely a dozen words with the man since his hiring.

"I've completed my assessment of Mr. Potter," the mediwitch said. "Let me begin by saying that had I my preference, Mr. Potter would be at St. Mungo's now, but Mr. Podmore vetoed that idea most strenuously."

Artie raised his chin in response to the implied rebuke. "As I said earlier, Madam Pomfrey, in light of the circumstances that led to my client's injuries, I feel that absent compelling reasons otherwise, it would be safer for him to remain here behind the wards of Hogwarts rather than be sent to a large hospital where the security is not as tight." Naturally, Harry's other reasons for not wishing to be examined by specialists at the wizarding hospital were left unspoken.

"Hmmf," Pomfrey said with a sniff. "Be that as it may, Mr. Potter is now stabilized and in a healing coma. But it was touch and go for several hours, and if there are any negative changes in his condition, I will transfer him to St. Mungo's regardless of your preferences, Mr. Podmore. If it comes down to it, you can just sue me or something."

"Fair enough," Artie said with a nod.

"What happened to Mr. Potter, Poppy?" Dumbledore asked. "Do we know what curse was used against him?"

"No, which is why I wanted him in the spell damage ward to begin with. His symptoms are most peculiar. If I didn't know better, I'd say he'd been subjected to significant Cruciatus exposure." At that, Lily gasped in horror. "But there appears to be no impairment to his body's nervous system. All the neural shock was focused on his brain, and that's not how the Crucio works. I believe he will remain comatose for several days, and I can perform a more thorough neural analysis when he wakes up. If he does not wake up relatively soon, I will consider other treatment options. I'm afraid that's all I can say at this time."

After answering a few more question, Pomfrey shooed everyone out of the Infirmary. Moody was the last to leave, and when everyone was gone, he turned back to the mediwitch. "Tell me, Poppy, among the tests you performed on the boy, did you do a Lubinsky-Chang assessment?"

She crooked a suspicious eyebrow. "And why, pray tell, would I do that, Alastor?"

He gave an evasive shrug. "Just an idea. You should consider it. Might be important."

She folded her arms. "Alastor, what do you know about my patient and how do you know it?"

Moody sighed and gave her a jagged smile. "Poppy, please. Just trust me? For old time's sake?" And then, he gave her a wink with his one good eye, and she blushed slightly at the remembrance of her crush from decades before on the man who was once the cutest boy in Hufflepuff House.

* * *

_**The Astronomy Tower** _  
_**7:30 p.m.** _

It had taken Hermione half an hour after supper to find Theo No-Name at the top of the Astronomy Tower. The boy hadn't been at dinner which she found worrying. She'd intended to check with Blaise to see if the other boy knew where he might be, but she'd gotten waylaid by Lavender Brown who hugged her nearly to unconsciousness while gushing madly about her "prophetic gifts." Apparently. Lavender was now utterly convinced that she would have died or else been turned into a werewolf had Hermione not warned her away from Hogsmeade. Never mind that it was a juvenile prank on Hermione's part meant to take advantage of Lavender's credulity. Or that Hermione was quite certain Lavender would have come to no harm even if she had gone to Hogsmeade since Harry Potter was the only one at all to suffer any injuries from the day's events. No, Hermione was a  _Seeress_  now (with a capital S), and nothing she could say or do would persuade Lavender or indeed the majority of Gryffindor House otherwise. In fact, Lavender was now talking about having Hermione visit Brown Manor over the Christmas break to perform "readings" for all her relatives, a prospect that left Hermione utterly horrified.

When she made it to the top of the tower, she found Theo sitting next to one of the open windows with his knees pulled up against his chest. From his vantage point, it was possible to still see the still-smoking ruins of the Tonks Clinic by the fading light of the evening sun. The boy looked utterly morose.

"Theo?" she said gently.

He glanced over to her and then turned back away. "How's Harry?" he asked.

She came closer. "No change. He's expected to be in a healing coma for some time." She hesitated. "I didn't see you at dinner. Have you eaten?"

"M'fine," he said without looking at her. "Not hungry."

"Theo, you need to eat something. You didn't eat anything this afternoon either."

He snorted. "Well of course not! You  _know_  why our lunch plans got interrupted! Somebody sent  _hellfire_  after The Outcast and burned down his foster family's home!"

"Theo, what happened today wasn't your fault!"

The boy snorted. "I'm pretty sure I counted at least twenty ' _Die, Outcast, Die!_ ' messages burned into the walls that said otherwise, Hermione."

"You weren't the one to burn them though, Theo. You were the intended victim, not the perpetrator."

"Yeah, exactly. And I'm getting very tired of feeling like the victim all the time. But on the bright side, I didn't get maimed for life or lose the home I grew up in like Ted or Dora. I didn't get ... b-burned to death like ..." He looked away, suddenly overcome with emotion. He sniffled as he wiped away the fresh tears.

She reached down and put a hand on his shoulder. "Theo, what happened to Iris was a terrible tragedy, I know. But as for the rest, homes can be rebuilt, and the injuries Ted experienced can be healed."

" _Well, I hope they can be healed_ ," the girl thought to herself. She still wasn't entirely sure what Ron Weasley had done – and with Parseltongue no less! – but it would be amazing if Ted could be fully healed from Fiendfyre burns.

"Anyway, you can't blame yourself for those things. Blame the Death Eaters and werewolves who were truly responsible." She glanced down out of the Astronomy window to the courtyard far below still illuminated by the dying sunset. "Come down with me, Theo. You shouldn't be up here all alone."

"Why?" he said harshly as he shrugged her hand off his shoulder. "Afraid I'll do something stupid? Something to put everyone out of my misery? Maybe I should."

Hermione didn't respond at first. Instead, she simply moved over to the other side of the window, dropped her book bag, and slid her back down the wall into a seating position. For a long while, they said nothing but simply watched the sunset together.

"A friend of my killed himself not long ago," she finally said. Theo looked up suddenly in surprise.

"Who...?"

"You wouldn't know him," she said while still staring off into the night sky. "He was someone ... from back home. He also ... had a difficult home life and felt that there was no one there for him. And when he reached out to me ... I wasn't there for him either. I was too wrapped up in my own issues to realize how much he was hurting. How alone he felt."

She turned back to Theo. "I would do anything to undo that mistake. I never again want to feel like I let my any of my friends down by not being there when they needed help. Or by failing to let them know how much they are loved even if they don't know it. And how much they'd be missed if they were gone."

Theo stared speechless at the girl for several seconds before he had to look away. "Hermione ... look. I'm sorry about your friend. And ... I'm sorry I've been so ... mopey lately. I promise I won't do anything foolish up here. And I do know I have good friends. You and Harry and Blaise and others. It's just ... I don't see how those friends can be enough when it feels like the whole world is against me."

Hermione absorbed that silently for a moment before her eyes lit up. "Theo, have you picked out a book for your Muggle Studies book report assignment yet?"

Theo did a double-take at the change of topic. "Uh, no. Why?"

Hermione quickly opened her bag and pulled out a paperback book. "I think you should do this one. I was going to, but it seems unfair to the other students to choose something I read years before and consider one of my favorite books. But I think you should do it. It'll be a good fit for you."

"What's it about?" he asked.

"Rabbits."

"...  _rabbits_?"

"Rabbits," she said firmly while flipping through the book. When she found a certain page, she tapped it with her wand to magically highlight a particular passage. Then, she folded down the corner of the page so it would be easy to find.

"Woah! Hermione Granger defacing a book!" Theo said with mock surprise. "Will wonders never cease."

"Well it is my own personal copy of this book. And besides, it's paperback. They're expendable."

She handed the book over. And then, for good measure, she pulled a chocolate bar from her bag and handed that over as well. "Eat this tonight, but tomorrow, I want to see you at breakfast."

Theo snickered softly. "Yes, mother." With that, Hermione rose and headed towards the exit, while Theo turned towards the marked passage. As he read over the passage, for a brief instant, he found himself mildly hurt at what he was reading. But as he continued, his eyes widened and the beginnings of a smile crept over the corners of his mouth. He looked up at the girl who was watching him with a hopeful expression.

"Good night, Theo," she said with a wave.

Theo waved back, and his smile was genuine. "Good night, Hermione. I'll see you tomorrow."

As Hermione left the tower, Theo read the marked passage one more time before flipping back to start the book from the beginning.

 _**All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand Enemies.** _  
_**And when they catch you, they will kill you.** _  
_**But first, they must catch you,** _  
_**digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning.** _  
_**Be cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.** _  
_**— Watership Down, Richard Adams** _

* * *

_**An abandoned shack in the woods** _  
_**Approximately 200 miles south of Hogwarts** _  
_**11:30 p.m.** _

" _Explanations_!" Peter demanded in a fury. "Will someone kindly tell me how a group of highly trained and experienced werewolf-mercenaries following a meticulously organized plan two months in the making somehow managed to get their arses handed to them by a thirteen-year-old boy, a Muggle Studies teacher, and  _the sodding Hogwarts Caretaker_?!"

Stavros Skorzeny growled angrily, but Fenrir Greyback merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what the Caretaker's deal is, Pettigrew, but I'm here to tell you – there's more to the Potter boy than meets the eye. I mean, he's just a kid and is already doing wandless magic! That's not normal."

Peter scoffed. "Impossible. There's no way the little brat can do wandless magic at thirteen! It must have been accidental magic!"

"Then it was  _damned convenient_  accidental magic, Peter. And that's something we weren't prepared for. Just as we weren't prepared for that Mudblood bitch slinging curses I've never heard of and also shooting off  _a fully corporeal Patronus_!"

The rat animagus bit off the scathing reply that had been on the tip of his tongue. To be honest, it seemed like everything that could have gone wrong did. He'd gotten a summary out of Prongs earlier after he'd returned Jim to the school. First, Harry  _Bloody_  Potter had staged a daring rescue of the Wilkes whelp right out of Fenrir's grasp. Then, Lily had shown up with that Patronus she'd been so proud of back in Fifth Year. He'd known that werewolves were vulnerable to the Patronus, but he'd never realized they were  _that_  vulnerable. And then, the runic array that he'd pulled out of the remains of Mr. Toymaker's arsenal had failed to live up to its reputation and collapsed far sooner than he'd expected. But the cherry on top was the mysterious Caretaker, Malachi Sturgeon, who apparently dropped literally out of the sky to take down Janos Skorzeny with some kind of strange martial arts attack and, in the process, reveal Pettigrew's deception about Sirius Black. James had no idea who Sturgeon was and was highly suspicious of him, but Dumbledore himself spoke up for the man personally when he arrived at Hogsmeade just after the attack ended. That was enough for James to drop the issue for the time being.

"What about the four pack members who were captured?" he asked, changing the subject. "What do they know – particularly about  _me_? And will they break under interrogation?"

Fenrir shook his head. "No. Only Janos knew your real name or even what you really look like. And he can resist Legilimency and Veritaserum."

"So all I have to worry about is him  _voluntarily_  giving me up to stay out of Azkaban," Peter groused.

"You underestimate the pack bond, Pettigrew. The curse binds my pack to me through the magic of dominance and submission. I am Janos's alpha, and I have charged him with keeping our secrets unto death. He will not betray us."

"No, he will not," Stavros said hotly. "But will we betray him? How are we going to rescue him from the DMLE?"

" _We_  are not going to do anything of the sort!" Peter snapped. "Your brother knew the risks as well as the penalty for failure. When our Lord returns, he will be rescued from Azkaban and handsomely rewarded for his devotion to our cause. Provided that the pack bond Fenrir speaks of is as strong as you all claim ... and that the idiot isn't dumb enough to be tricked into giving away information despite the bond. His capture by a glorified janitor doesn't speak well for his competence after all."

"ENOUGH!" Stavros roared. "Fenrir! Why do you just stand there and let him speak of my brother that way!" He snarled at Peter and flexed his clawed hands. "Who are you to speak to any werewolf that way, you pathetic little  _wizard_?"

Peter crooked an eyebrow at the outburst before calmly walking straight up to Stavros, completely unafraid even though the partially-transformed werewolf was almost a foot taller. Nearby, Fenrir closed his eyes and began rubbing his forehead with his hand.

"Who am  _I_?" the wizard asked mildly. "Who am  _I_  to speak to a werewolf in whatever manner I choose?" He smiled broadly, and Stavros was suddenly struck by how unusually pointed the man's teeth now seemed to be.

Outside, a flock of birds that had been nesting for the night in the nearby woods suddenly took frightened wing in response to the screams that echoed out of the shack and across the forest.

* * *

_**The Hogwarts Infirmary** _  
_**3:25 a.m.** _

Though the hour was late, the Infirmary was not fully dark. The stars were bright out tonight and the moon was more than half-full, and their combined light shown through the windows well enough to see clearly. No one saw or heard James Potter as he entered and made his way to the bed where his eldest son lay comatose. Illuminated by starlight, Harry looked pale but peaceful, as if he were merely slumbering instead of recovering from a near-death experience. The boy's father was exhausted from the stresses of the day, but he knew he would not be able to sleep until he saw Harry in person. For several minutes, he simply stood at the foot of the bed as if waiting for his son to open his eyes, while years worth of regret over his failures raged in his gut.

"Come back to us, Harry," he finally said in a whisper. "Come back to us, and I promise I'll fix things. Whatever it takes, I'll make things right."

* * *

_**1 November 1993** _  
_**The Potions Classroom** _  
_**6:00 p.m.** _

Hermione entered the classroom with a mix of trepidation and annoyance. Trepidation because she had no idea why Professor Snape had sent her a message at lunch informing her that she had a three-hour detention with him that evening. Annoyance because after her detention was over, she still had several hours of homework waiting, and between her heavy class load and the stress of the weekend's events, she was completely exhausted. If things continued like this, she might have to pay another visit to Clarence Smith, the snooty Ravenclaw Sixth Year who discreetly sold black market Pepper-Up Potions to over-achievers like Hermione who seemed to have more intellectual curiosity and ambition than common sense.

As she passed through the doorway, however, the girl stopped short in surprise. All the furniture normally found in the Potions classroom had been cleared away, leaving only a small table – a gurney, actually – upon which rested what appeared to be a man's body. On closer inspection, though, she recognized it as the dummy that Professor Lockhart had used the previous year for his First Aid lessons. A very realistic dummy, she recalled, as the fake blood it produced when cut open made several people in her class sick. Professor Snape stood on the other side.

"Come in, Miss Granger, and close the door behind you."

She did so, and he immediately sent a powerful locking spell followed by a silencing charm.

"I apologize for the deception of giving you a detention, but I require a certain amount of discretion for what I now propose to do with you."

"Do ...  _with_  me, Professor?" she asked nervously.

He nodded. "In light of yesterday's events, I wish to teach you two spells which might be of use to you in the future. One of them is a spell of my own design which, frankly, a great many people would consider dark magic. Accordingly, if you agree to learn this spell, I must ask that you also take a vow of secrecy regarding who taught it to you. I would also hope that you will show the greatest discretion both in using it and in teaching it to others. It is not a spell that should be widely disseminated, though I do plan to share it with Harry Potter upon his recovery, as well as certain others who have shown both the skill and maturity needed to master it while respecting its dangers. The spell's name, which you may remember from a previous discussion we had last year, is ...  _Sectumsempra_."

Hermione's eyes widened. She had begun a cursory study of that spell from the notes she'd found in her dorm that she later learned had been stolen from Snape during his student days. He'd warned her off the spell then, saying the notes were incomplete, but he'd never said anything about the spell being  _dark_. She also wondered just how bad the spell could be for Snape himself to consider it dark magic.

"I see you do recall the name," Snape noted. "When last we spoke on the topic, I told you that the spell notes you had were incomplete and that you might end up seriously injuring or killing someone if you attempted it. What I did not say ... is that doing so is the spell's intended function. I created Sectumsempra for purposes of  _maiming and killing._ "

Hermione found herself speechless. This was not a conversation she ever expected to have with a teacher. Not even this teacher.

"Before I will teach you Sectumsempra, however, you will learn a different spell with a more practical purpose, not to mention a more socially acceptable pedigree. Vulnera Sanentur is an extremely powerful healing Charm capable of repairing even the deepest cuts and gashes, including internal bleeding. It too is a spell of my own design, though unlike my other personal curses, I have willingly shared it with Madam Pomfrey and others. It is a useful Charm to know under any circumstances, but it is vital to know before any study of Sectumsempra, as wounds inflicted with the latter cannot be healed with any lesser healing Charm. Absent a swift application of Vulnera Sanentur, any injuries resulting from Sectumsempra that are more than superficial will inevitably bleed out, resulting in the victim's death."

The girl was suitably horrified. "Professor, why would you want me to learn a spell like that?! One that would be lethal without a special healing Charm to counteract it?!"

A strange furious light entered Snape's eyes. "Because yesterday's events have shown it to be necessary, Miss Granger," he said with some anger. "You see, I designed Sectumsempra for use in  _killing werewolves_!"

* * *

_**From The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts by Arsenius Jigger (p. 394)** _

It is important to note that lycanthropes (werewolves in the vulgar parlance) are not a natural phenomenon nor truly magical creatures, despite political efforts to categorize them as either Beings or Beasts. Each werewolf was originally a human being, whether magical or Muggle, who was subjected to the Lycanthropic Curse. In modern times, this invariably means surviving an attack by a werewolf in his fully transformed state, as the original Lycanthropic Curse has been lost since the death of its creator.

That creator was the notorious 14th century Dark Lord named Emeric Belasco but who has been christened by history as "Emeric the Evil," a name he proudly bore during his relatively lengthy career. Emeric was of Bavarian descent but entered Hogwarts (the only European magical school at the time) in 1340 where he was sorted into Gryffindor. A brash but brilliant student, Emeric was, among other gifts, a natural animagus who spontaneously developed the power to transform into the shape of a small dog, possibly a Crup, around the age of thirteen. Natural animagery (i.e. the spontaneous development of an animagus form without the use of any rituals or training exercises, usually during the onset of puberty) was more common in Europe in those days as it remains today in Africa and parts of East Asia, though it became increasingly rare among Europeans and unheard of in Britain in the last two centuries.

Apparently unhappy with his animagus form, Emeric spent the first decade or so post-graduation researching animagery and other aspects of human transfiguration in hopes of learning a new and more impressive form, but by all accounts, the animagus form, once acquired, is immutable. However, Emeric's research into the animagus gift bore terrible fruit in other ways. Through dark experiments and rituals, Emeric devised a curse that would permanently impose a form of uncontrolled animagery on the targeted victim. The first successful (for some definitions of the word) experiments resulted in the Apocalypse Pack, the thirteen original werewolves from whom all modern werewolves claim descent, as anyone who survived being bitten or scratched by one of the Apocalypse Pack would inevitably become lycanthropes themselves and be able to pass on that curse similarly to others.

The means by which the Curse functions is still unclear as of this writing, but its properties are well-known. When a human being is infected with Lycanthropy, he immediately becomes physically stronger and tougher, while gaining heightened auditory and olfactory senses. The victim also heals at an accelerated rate, though the werewolf cannot regenerate damage post mortem and thus return to life as trolls can. These traits are present at all times. But more importantly – and more infamously – on one night each month when the moon is at its fullest and the sun has set, the victim will uncontrollably transform into a human-wolf hybrid. In this inhuman form, the werewolf's strength, speed, and durability all increase even more, and the creature gains powerful claws capable of slicing through bone. A transformed werewolf also generates a powerful "fear aura" which most humans find debilitating.

However, the transformed werewolf's intellect is diminished to that of a wild, nearly rabid animal which has an instinctual predisposition for human flesh over all other food sources. While a werewolf can eat animal flesh (and will in the absence of human meat), a transformed werewolf will always pursue human prey over animal prey. The one exception to this general rule is animagi – due to some facet of the curse, whether intentional or accidental, a transformed werewolf will almost never show aggression towards a transformed animagus unless seriously provoked. Indeed, the literature is replete with stories of animagi successfully fighting off werewolves and even herding them away from human prey. Furthermore, it is well established that an animagus, whether transformed or not, is immune to the Lycanthropic Curse and cannot contract lycanthropy under any recorded circumstances. Likely this has something to do with the manner in which Emeric used his own animagus gift as a template for the curse, as it was known that Emeric could exercise some degree of control even over fully transformed werewolves, though their limited intelligence and uncontrollable rage made them poor servants.

Initially, a newly infected werewolf retains his full human intelligence and personality except on the night of the full moon. However, upon infection, the werewolf soon develops a series of psychological disorders endemic to the curse. Initially, these disorders manifest as bouts of uncontrollable anger, loss of human socialization skills, and a strong preference for meat over other foodstuffs. As the curse fully takes hold, these disorders worsen into extreme sociopathy, cannibalistic tendencies, a propensity for sadism, and an inability to view non-werewolves as anything other than prey animals and/or toys. When a werewolf has reached this level of psychological degradation, he gains the power to intentionally assume a transitional state in which he remains essentially human in form, but grows larger and more hirsute, and develops claws which, while not capable of transmitting the curse, are still quite deadly. This process of degradation is considered irreversible, and most infected werewolves will completely abandon all human morals and constraints in as little as one month after infection or as long as a year. It is theorized that the length of time before complete degradation is influenced primarily by the number of human victims killed and eaten during transformation. Interestingly, the process of degradation may also be accelerated simply be remaining in the company of other werewolves. All lycanthropes have a powerful pack instinct and tend to organize themselves into stable social groups with the most powerful member gaining the status of "pack alpha" and with it a degree of control over the rest of the pack. Solitary werewolves tend to lose their grip on their humanity at a somewhat slower rate.

Stories about the supposed weaknesses of werewolves abound. While Muggle legends about werewolves suggest that they are particularly vulnerable to silver, this is naught but myth. Few Muggle weapons can have any meaningful effect on a fully transformed werewolf, and in fact, most spells are ineffective as well due to the creatures incredibly swift regenerative properties. Naturally, the Killing Curse is as effective against a werewolf as it is against any other living thing, but it remains Unforgivable even in the case of werewolf attacks, though during the time of Emeric's activity, those wizarding societies at greatest risk from his werewolf armies sometimes sanctioned the use of the Killing Curse to slay werewolves. Werewolves also have some vulnerability to the Patronus Charm – the mist form can disorient and bewitch werewolves while a true Patronus can inflict physical damage that does not heal with the creature's usual swiftness. More conventional combat Charms are only effective if used en masse by multiple wizards working in tandem to inflict damage faster than the werewolf can heal it.

* * *

_**Sometime later ...** _

It was a lazy November afternoon that found Harry Potter sitting under a tree near Black Lake, watching contentedly as the Giant Squid waved a tentacle in his direction. Harry waved back before looking around. He'd been here for a while but had seen no sign of anyone else, student or teacher. Just him and the Squid, apparently. He frowned at that, but then shrugged. For some reason, it didn't seem important.

As the Squid frolicked in the lake, Harry pulled out his trusty wand and examined it. He'd always been immaculately careful with the holly and phoenix wand since the day he'd bought it, but somehow it seemed as if he were only just now seeing it as it really was. Only now was he hyper-aware of every whorl, eddy, and indentation on the wand's surface. With a smile, he tossed the wand up into the air and then flexed his fingers slightly. Instantly, the wand snapped back into his hand. He did that a few more times before pulling his arm back and hurling the wand towards the lake. Then, just before it could hit the water, he gave his wand hand the tiniest twitch. Again, the wand rocketed back into his waiting hand.

Harry smiled and studied the wand some more with a curious expression. "Curious, very curious. That's what Ollivander said." Harry tossed the wand up into the air once again, but this time, instead of summoning it back into his palm, he extended his forefinger. The wand landed on the finger and rested there in perfect balance. He moved his hand around experimentally, but the wand never fell off his finger. Then, he eyed the wand speculatively and focused his concentration on it. Slowly at first, the wand began to spin around in a circle centered on his finger. Faster and faster it spun until it rose up off the forefinger to hover about an inch above it like a helicopter's blades. Harry chuckled and then unclenched his other fingers. The wand's rotation ceased instantly, and once more, it snapped back into his palm.

"That's a neat trick," said a bright voice from behind him, startling the boy into giving out a small yelp. It was Luna Lovegood.

"Luna!" Harry said happily. "How are you today? And by any chance do you know where everybody else is?"

"I'm fine, Harry Potter," she said as sat down on the grass next to him. "I imagine everyone else is in class since it's the middle of the day. I had a free period, so I decided to take a short nap. That's when I saw you out here. How are you feeling?"

Harry shrugged. "Not bad, although I do feel a bit ... befuddled. Like my brain is a bit fuzzy."

"Well, that's to be expected, Harry Potter. You are in a coma after all."

"Oh, well I guess that makes ... sorry, _I'm in a what now_?"

"A coma. It's a state of profound unconsciousness caused by disease, injury, or poison. You've been in one since Saturday afternoon. I've been looking for you ever since, but, silly me, I never thought to look outside of the school. I should have remembered that this spot is one of your safe spaces."

"Oooo-kay. I don't feel like I'm in a coma."

"Well, don't just take my word for it," she replied before turning her head to the lake. " _Mr. Squid_! If this is a dream, would you please slap the water three times with a tentacle?" And to Harry's amazement, a huge tentacle rose up out of the water and did just that.

"Huh. So ... I'm ... in a coma. Interesting." He frowned momentarily at his own lack of concern before deciding that he was probably on pain relievers in the waking world.

" _Assuming, of course, that this conversation is actually even happening_ ," he thought before deciding to accept his unusual placidity as just one more thing to deal with later.

"And this is a dream, I guess? Are you really even here?"

She nodded. "You had a dream about me. And I had a dream about you. Which was convenient for us both, I think. I've been wanting to talk to you for some time, Harry, but for some reason, it keeps slipping my mind."

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked hesitantly.

She paused as if looking for a diplomatic way to say it before shrugging and choosing directness. "I think there's something horrible in Slytherin House."

He laughed. "Well, probably so. I mean, it is Slytherin House, after all."

She shook her head. "No, I don't mean the normal horribles of hate, greed, and fear. It's a more specifically horrible ... horrible. But for some reason, I keep forgetting to tell you about it when I'm awake. Which only makes it even more concerning, I'm afraid." She pulled her legs into her chest and wrapped her arms around them as if chilled. "I mean, I usually forget all my dreams no matter how much I try to remember. But I'm pretty sure this is something I know when I'm awake, but I never seem to think about it."

He nodded as if to absorb that odd statement, but then, he suddenly sat up straighter. "Was it something to do with the Carrow twins?" he asked.

Luna's eyes brightened. "Yes! Yes, it was! I can't believe I just forgot about them. Of course, since the Sorting, I haven't really seen them anywhere since then since we're in different years." Then, she grimaced. "Or if I have, I've forgotten those sightings as well. Why did you ask about them?"

"Well, I remember seeing your expression at their Sorting and thought it was worth looking into, so I made a mental note to ask you what was so disturbing about them." He blinked twice. "And then, I completely forgot all about it myself. Which, now that I think about it, is wildly out of character for me."

Luna nodded in sympathy. "Well maybe you'll have better luck than me and remember that they're important when you wake up. This is the first time I've thought about them since the night of the Opening Feast ... that I recall anyway."

"So what was so wrong with the Carrows that it gave you that reaction upon seeing them? Their nargles and wreckspurts?"

"Wrackspurts. And they didn't even have any of those which is slightly odd in and of itself, but not that odd if they were both well-adjusted and had no reasons for being angry or unhappy at the time. And their nargles didn't look particularly strange, though very different from most of the ones I see in other people. No, what bothered me was that their nargles move together in perfect synchronicity.  _Perfect_  synchronicity."

"Well, they are identical twins, Luna."

"So are you and Jim. And Fred and George. And the Patil sisters. None of you are as in tune as the Carrows. It's almost as if ..."

"What?" Harry asked.

She turned to him and shivered slightly. "It's almost as if they have the  _same mind_  that is somehow present in two separate bodies."

Harry shivered himself at that before changing the subject slightly. "You said their ... nargles looked unusual. In what way? What do nargles even look like?"

"I'm not entirely sure I should answer that, Harry. Knowing too much about the things I see ... well, most people seem to find it disturbing."

Harry crooked an eyebrow. "I think I can handle it," he said confidently.

Luna stared at him for a few seconds. Then, she shrugged and reached over to touch Harry's left temple with a finger. Harry jerked back instinctively and shook his head. Then, his eyes widened. The colors of his dreamscape suddenly faded slightly as if everything around him was no longer real, but just a movie being projected onto a faded canvass. And then, he could see the things moving behind the canvass ... which itself grew thinner and thinner before fading away to allow him to see the creatures clearly. Harry looked around wildly at the sea of ...  _things_ , some small, some big, and some  _massive_. Then, with a feeling of dread, he slowly looked down at his own body to witness the things that were somehow swimming around inside his body. Harry opened his mouth to draw in a terrified breath ...

* * *

_**The Hogwarts Infirmary** _  
_**4 November 1993 (Wednesday)** _  
_**1:30 p.m.** _

" _GAAAAH_!"

From her nearby desk, Madam Pomfrey jumped in surprise at the sound of a scream from her only patient, one who she'd expected to remain in a healing coma for several more days at least. She ran to Harry's bedside, her wand already drawn. The boy's scream had already ceased, and he was now sitting upright in bed, panting as if he'd just run a race.

"Mr. Potter, lie back down at once! You've suffered serious injuries, and I don't want you to harm yourself any further."

The boy looked around for a few seconds before accepting that he was (a) alive, (b) awake, and (c) in the Infirmary. Slowly, he did as the matron asked. He started to speak but quickly realized that his mouth wasn't working quite right.

"W-what ... what day ... is it?" he got out before a coughing fit set in.

"It is Wednesday in the afternoon. You have been in a healing coma for about four days." Pomfrey conjured a glass of water and carefully helped him to drink it.

"H-h-how's Amy?"

Madam Pomfrey was slightly taken aback that nearly the boy's first thought was to ask about someone else. "Miss Wilkes is quite alright. She suffered nothing more than a few superficial bruises from your landing and was released within thirty minutes. To be perfectly honest, I am amazed at your recovery even after four days." She paused. "You screamed when you awoke. Are you in any pain?"

He shook his head. "Not really. Just ... sore. I woke up from ... a nightmare ... I think." He frowned as he tried to remember.

" _What was I dreaming about when I woke up? Something ... about Luna?_ " But the memory of his nightmare refused to come. He was left only with the firm impression that it was something important that was lost to him now. Something he would need to recover sooner rather than later.

* * *

_**Later that evening ...** _

After several hours of medical assessment and a nap enforced with a Sleeping Draught, Madam Pomfrey finally declared Harry Potter fit enough to receive visitors, although she informed him to his dismay that he would not be fit enough to fly in the Gryffindor-Slytherin season opener that had been scheduled for the following Saturday. In fact, the match itself had been rescheduled with the Hufflepuffs taking the Slytherin team's place.

After the mediwitch left, Harry looked around and noticed that the bedside table was covered with flowers, candy gifts, and get-well cards. Apparently, word of his recovery had spread quickly during his nap. His wand and glasses were also on the table just out of reach. Harry looked around the room to make sure he was alone. Then, he cautiously held up a hand and focused his attention on the wand. Instantly, it flew into his hand. Harry smiled in satisfaction. Then, he focused his attention on his glasses to see if he could summon them as well. The glasses defiantly sat in their place, however. He shrugged and pointed his wand at them, intending to say "Accio Glasses," but to his surprise, the glasses flew into his hand just from the merest wand movement without him even saying the incantation. Then, for some inscrutable reason, he spent several minutes unsuccessfully trying to balance his wand on the tip of his finger before giving up and summoning a Chocolate Frog instead.

Over the next hour, most of his friends came in to give him their good wishes, though the mediwitch refused to allow more than two student visitors at a time and for no more than ten minutes each. James and Lily Potter also came for a longer visit (with a grumbling Severus Snape in tow). Both of them seemed simultaneously distraught at his injury, proud of his "Gryffindorish" courage in saving Amy, and deliriously happy that he was alive and recovering.

Lily also took what Harry thought was an odd interest in the nature of Harry's friendship with Amy Wilkes. He got the vague impression that his mother was worried that he and Amy were romantically attached or something along those lines and that she perhaps disapproved of the Toymaker's daughter dating her firstborn, but she seemed perfectly fine when Harry made it clear that he had no interest in Amy of that kind. For his part, James seemed ill-at-ease (even by his usual standards of "Harry interactions"), as if there were things he wanted to say to the boy but could not bring himself to utter aloud. Jim was also present, and he seemed both in awe of how Harry had evaded the werewolves to save Amy Wilkes and embarrassed by how he'd been removed against his will from the scene by Peter Pettigrew.

The Potters were his last official visitors for the evening, as Madam Pomfrey firmly announced that Harry needed rest and that visiting hours would not resume until the next morning. As Jim was leaving, he turned back to Harry and said "See ya later" with an obvious wink. Harry smiled and shook his head. It seemed that a "No Visitors" sign meant little to a Gryffindor with an Invisibility Cloak.

Soon after, a house elf brought Harry his evening meal along with a copy of today's Daily Prophet. While tucking in, he decided reviewed his various get-well messages first. One in particular caught his eye, as it was a bulky package from Professor Scrimgeour. Inside was a thick set of bound papers with a cover that read " _Wizengamot vs. Sirius Black, November 4, 1981_." There was also a short handwritten message on the DADA professor's personal stationary.

_Potter, H —_

_I hope you enjoy the enclosed "get-well gift." Do not start reading through it until after you've been released from the Infirmary. Madam Pomfrey has forbidden myself and the other teacher from giving you anything that counted as "homework." Which I suppose this technically is since your proffered reason for requesting it was as research materials for your paper on the Death Eater trials. When you have been released from the tyranny of the Hogwarts Infirmary and have had a chance to thoroughly review the transcript (Take your time – at least a few weeks of careful study), come and see me about it. After a quick perusal, I have already noted some salient features and look forward to hearing your thoughts on them._

_— Scrimgeour_

Harry grinned. Finally, he had the mysterious Sirius Black trial transcripts! Harry hid the transcript underneath his pillow before opening the Prophet to read the paper's typically histrionic coverage of the Hogsmeade attack. Soon after, he nearly choked on his pumpkin juice when he learned that according to witnesses on the scene, the raid had been led by Sirius Black himself.

At around eleven o'clock, the doors to the Infirmary quietly opened and closed on their own accord. Seconds later, Jim Potter pulled off his invisibility cloak and sat down on the bed opposite his older sibling.

"Is Pomfrey gone for the night?" he whispered.

" _Madam_  Pomfrey, and yes. So now that my brother is here and can see that I'm not the invalid all the grown-ups think I am, maybe you can tell me everything that happened Saturday and since?"

Jim laughed and gave a quick overview of the things that didn't make the papers. Harry was saddened to learn of the death of Iris and the loss of the Tonks Clinic, but he was relieved to know that Ted Tonks had already been released from St. Mungo's. He also reassured Jim that being apparated away from danger against his will did not reflect at all on his courage. In fact (and despite his own personal disdain for the man), Harry commended Peter Pettigrew for removing Jim from the scene.

"Jim, you're the Boy-Who-Lived. The One with the Power to vanquish Moldy Shorts for good. You must realize that you're a prime target in any Death Eater attack. You may want to ' _fight the bad guys_ ' but you're the only one who can finish the job against the  _real_  bad guy. As much as it might frustrate you, if you get yourself killed before the final battle, it may be that no one else can step up in your place."

"I know, I know," he grumbled. "But ... I'm a Gryffindor. I can't just sit around and do nothing when I've got the chance to help people." Then, he paused as he realized what he'd said. "Not that Slytherins won't help people, of course. I've learned my lesson about judging your house."

"So no more complaints about slimy snakes?" Harry asked mischievously.

"Nope... Well, maybe on the Quidditch pitch."

"Well, that goes without saying." The brothers both laughed at that, but then Jim grew thoughtful.

"Have you ever thought ... have you ever thought that it could have been you?" he asked pensively.

"What do you mean? I thought you got over that boggart fear."

Jim shrugged. "I wouldn't say I got over it so much as it got outclassed by Dementors as something to be scared of. Still ... we were both born as the seventh month died and less than ten minutes apart. Dad said the healer ' _cut the cord_ ' right as the clock struck twelve. So, if I'd been born even a minute later, you would have been the one to fit the Prophecy instead of me."

"Well, thank you, Little Brother, for taking that burden off my shoulders. I am entirely too selfish and cynical to be anybody's Chosen One." He paused for a moment then, as a fleeting memory brought to his mind during his fall four days earlier popped into his head again. "Mind you, it is ... curious that you and I both have brother wands to Tom Riddle's. I've often wondered if there was some mystical significance of that. Something twin-related, maybe."

"Curious," Jim repeated slowly as he tried to dredge up a memory of his own. Not for the first time, he wished he'd had the right stuff to master Occlumency as Harry had. An eidetic memory would make his life easier in lots of ways. "Mr. Ollivander said something about that when I got my wand. ' _Very curious indeed, Mr. Potter_ ,' in that creepy voice of his. He didn't use the phrase  _brother wand_ , but he did say it was definitely curious that Fawkes had only given up three feathers for wand-making in the last century, and that one of them went into the wand that gave me my scar. Did he say anything like that to you?"

Harry thought for a moment and then blushed. "He got as far saying ' _Curious, very curious indeed'_  before I cut him off and changed the topic." He coughed with some embarrassment. "That, um, was the day I met James and found out ... everything. I was feeling a bit ... cranky."

Jim smirked. "Cranky? Is that what we're calling it?"

"Never you mind," Harry said easily. "What else did Ollivander say?"

Jim thought for a moment. "Um, let's see. ' _We can expect great things from you, Mr. Potter, because the one who gave you that scar did great things. Terrible things, but great._ ' Or something like that. Scared the crap out of me at the time, to be honest." Then, he noticed the look Harry was giving him. "What?"

"Ollivander knew that Voldemort had a brother wand to you and by extension to me?" Harry asked with a thoughtful expression.

"Well, yeah," Jim replied. "I mean, apparently he always brags about remembering every wand he ever sold. Is it that surprising that he'd remember the wand he sold Voldemort?"

"Yes, actually!" Harry said as he sat up in bed. "Because Ollivander didn't sell a wand to Voldemort. Ollivander sold a wand to an 11-year-old Tom Riddle, but it was Voldemort who used it against you."

Jim looked confused for a second before his face lit up in understanding. "But how could he have known that Tom Riddle became Lord Voldemort when that knowledge was under a Fidelius?!"

Harry and Jim simply looked at one another, for neither had any answers that didn't just raise more questions. And disturbing questions at that.

* * *

_**The next morning ...** _

Harry woke up early feeling remarkably refreshed and mostly recovered. After a quick examination, Madam Pomfrey announced that she had a few lingering concerns but would most likely release him after lunch. He was excused from his afternoon classes, though, and she firmly told him to return to the Infirmary immediately if he suffered from any dizziness, headaches, or really any symptoms at all.

At ten o'clock, Artie Podmore entered the Infirmary. Harry's initial excitement changed to concern when the solicitor said he was there to discuss correspondence he'd received from the Firebolt Broom Company. With everything that had happened, Harry had almost forgotten that he'd basically stolen an incredibly expensive prototype broom and then taken it on a high-speed chase in the wrong gear before crashing it. He wondered how much he'd have to pay for it, or worse, whether he'd be prosecuted for stealing it. Fortunately, Artie quickly put his mind at ease.

"No, Harry, they won't be prosecuting you or even seeking compensation for the damaged broom. They've already reclaimed it and refurbished it. And raised the sale price even higher, I might add. Apparently, your little escapade has made it even more of a collector's item."

"So what did they contact you about?" Harry asked in confusion. Artie smiled.

"Well, Harry, it seems that tales of your broom-flying exploits have been spread far and wide by the press. Particularly tales of how you rode a Firebolt in the wrong gear and still managed to completely outfly three werewolves on Nimbus 2001's. The Firebolt Company thinks this is a story worth spreading even further given how well it reflects on the quality of their product. And so, they contacted me to make you a somewhat unusual offer. Tell me, have you ever heard of a Muggle business concept referred to as an ' _endorsement deal_ '?"

And that was how Harry Potter got a free Firebolt from the company's new Chaser Elite line.

* * *

Harry's last visitation before his release wasn't quite as enjoyable or profitable, however. Just before lunch, Mad-Eye Moody arrived and pulled up a chair. His grim expression immediately told Harry that unlike his solicitor, the ex-auror wasn't there to deliver good news.

"How are you feeling, Potter?" he began.

Harry shrugged. "All things considered, pretty good, Mr. Moody. I was wondering if you might come by at some point."

Moody didn't respond for a moment. "I saw you fall," he finally said. "With my eye, I probably had a better view of what happened than anyone who wasn't one of your pursuers. Everyone assumes that you got hit by a curse of some kind but recovered enough to summon your broom and escape. But I  _saw_ , Potter. None of the werewolves ever hit you except indirectly with a Concussion Hex that knocked you off your broom ... and caused you to lose your wand. Which you promptly summoned back to your hand. So, I'd like to know, Potter. Was that accidental magic? Or something else? Because I know that if you couldn't summon your wand Saturday morning, there's no way you could summon it that afternoon without doing something ... unusual. So what's the story?"

Harry shrugged. "Not much to it, really. You were the one who suggested I use a parallel thought-track to focus on learning a wandless spell. I just ... expanded on the idea." He honestly tried not to sound smug, but failed in the effort.

"Expanded," Moody replied with a snort. "Can I go out on a limb and guess that you used more than one thought-track?"

"Um several more, actually," the boy said somewhat evasively.

"Uh-huh. So tell me, Potter, do you happen to recall me mentioning that there were some pitfalls to that technique?"

He sighed. "Yes, sir, though we never got to discuss what they were. But honestly, Mr. Moody, are any of those pitfalls worse than dying from a 2000-foot drop?"

"At ease, Potter. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. You had a million-to-one chance and you took it and it paid off. When your back's against the wall, you do whatever it takes to win. I just ... regret the sacrifice you had to make to win this particular battle."

"Sacrifice, sir?" Harry said uneasily.

Moody nodded. "As I taught you, learning wandless magic requires connecting your sense-memory of performing the spell in question to your core through the use of psychic strands. I also told you that you have a finite number of those strands. The technique of using parallel minds to accelerate wandless magical potential lets you devote more of your mind to mastering the spell and thus devoting more strands to it that you would normally use in order to learn it more quickly. However, this naturally means you will have fewer strands to devote to other spells in the future. Whatever you did, Potter, allowed you to cram literally years of practice into a few seconds in order to completely master that spell. But in the process..."

He paused as if delaying the news would make it easier to bear. "I asked Poppy to run a diagnostic assessment of your core. It appears that you somehow managed to dedicate all of your available psychic strands to that one spell. You will likely be  _amazingly good_  at that spell, but only that one. You don't have any psychic strands left to apply to any other wandless magic."

The Infirmary was silent save for the ticking of the clock on the wall and the whirring of Moody's eye as Harry absorbed the news. "So ... do you mean to say ... that the only wandless spell I'll ever be able to use is  _Accio_?"

"No, Potter," Moody answered in a leaden voice. "I mean to say that the only wandless spell you'll ever be able to use is  _Accio **Wand**_."

Harry stared at his mentor for what seemed like an eternity. Then, in a swift motion, his hand shot up off his lap. In response, Moody's own wand darted out of its holster almost faster than the eye could follow, whirled around in mid-air, and snapped into Harry's hand. It shot off a few yellow sparks that seemed to hint at indignant surprise.

"I guess I'll just have to work with what I've got then," Harry said nonchalantly. "And on the bright side, at least now I'll get to see all those memories of Voldemort in combat."

Moody's magical eye spun around madly while his regular eye simply widened in surprise. And then, he simply threw his head back and laughed.

* * *

_**DMLE Headquarters** _  
_**6 November 1993** _  
_**2:00 a.m.** _

Janos Skorzeny slept fitfully in his DMLE holding cell. His captors had spent the last four days constantly interrogating him for information about his pack, but they'd gotten nothing from him despite Veritaserum, Legilimency, and (when Potter and Bones weren't around) flat-out torture on the secret orders of Minister Fudge. His loyalty to his pack was absolute, and besides, the full moon was drawing ever nearer, and the Beast's ability to resist coercion grew ever stronger. He did not know if Fenrir would attempt a rescue or if he would be sent to Azkaban, but either way, the filthy wizards would get nothing from him.

Then, in an instant, he awoke and shot up in his cot at the sound of the cell door opening. He readied himself for another round with the Aurors, but to his surprise, it was a rather beautiful young woman in fashionable robes instead of a uniform. Even more surprisingly, no one else accompanied her.

"Good evening, werewolf," she said brightly.

Janos laughed. "Have the aurors given up already? Maybe they've decided to win me over by sending me a whore to play with!" With that, he lunged up off of his cot. But before he could take a step, a wand suddenly appeared in the woman's hand, and without a word spoken, Janos was lifted up and slammed against the far wall. With another flick of her wand, he was forced to his knees and then placed in a painful Body-Bind.

"I do apologize for being so brusque, werewolf, but I am quite pressed for time. I need to know what you know. About your employers and their plans. And also about the Azkaban break-out, if you and your kind were involved in it."

"You'll get nothing from me, witch. I am Janos Skorzeny of the line of Fenrir Greyback! I fear no torture."

"I have no interest in the pedigree of a werewolf, Mr. Skorzeny. Nor am I here to torture you or legilimize you or dose you with potions. I am well aware of your resistance to those things." She walked towards him while twirling her wand between her fingers. As she came closer, her eyes lit up and she grinned at the thought of what she was about to do.

"I am Cassilda Selwyn of the House of Selwyn, werewolf. And I have my own means of getting into your head."

She placed the tip of her wand against his right temple and then slowly drew it across the werewolf's forehead. Janos felt no pain, only a faint numbness where the wand touched him. Consequently, he did not even know to be alarmed until the blood started dripping down his face.

"Quite literally, in fact," Cassilda said with a gentle laugh.

It was not until dawn the next day when an auror checked in on the werewolf and immediately threw up on the floor before collecting himself and sounding the alarm. The body of Janos Skorzeny lay on the floor in a large pool of blood. His scalp was laying on the cot nearby along with the skullcap to which it was still attached.

The werewolf's brain was conspicuous by its absence.

* * *

_**The Hogwarts Infirmary** _  
_**7 November 1993** _  
_**3 p.m. (After the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff Quidditch match)** _

Jim Potter lay in his infirmary bed and stared at the ceiling without blinking as his thoughts churned in his head. The day had started off poorly when he received the news from Lily that something had happened at DMLE headquarters and that James would not be able to attend the Quidditch match. It was the first time his father hadn't been there to see him play since he made the team as a firstie. Lily wouldn't say what was going on, but the story was soon splayed out across the Daily Prophet – somehow, one of the werewolves captured the previous Saturday had been brutally murdered inside his cell by persons unknown. Since James had been the one to delay the werewolf's transfer to Azkaban, the creature's murder represented a PR disaster on top of the terrible nature of the security breach itself and the lost intelligence the werewolf might have provided.

To be honest, Jim had wished that he could skip the match as well. The weather had suddenly turned awful, and the teams were forced to play in a heavy rainstorm. It would have been impossible for Jim to ever spot the snitch had Harry not caught him on the way to the match and cast the Impervius Charm on his glasses to make them waterproof.

* * *

_**Earlier ...** _

"If you really wanna be helpful, Harry," Jim said, "you can let me borrow your fancy new Firebolt."

Harry's Chaser Elite broom had been the talk of the school when it had been delivered the day before, and just the sight of it made nearly every Quidditch enthusiast in the school drool with envy.

"Not a chance, Little Brother," Harry answered with a laugh. "You can beat Cedric Diggory without it. You facing him on a Firebolt as well would just be cruel."

"I bet you're glad now it's not Slytherin playing us today in all this." Both boys were headed to the pitch under the cover of Umbrella Charms, but it would be impossible for the players to maintain them while in the air.

Harry looked wistful. "Actually, I kinda wish Slytherin was still playing today."

"In Merlin's name, why?" Jim exclaimed.

"Well first of all," Harry said. "getting our match rescheduled because I was in hospital feels like a sign of weakness, and I can't stand that any more than you can."

Jim considered that. "Fair enough. And second reason?"

Harry looked around to make sure no one could hear. "Ginny's talented but not as experienced as you. Our best chance to win would be an environment in which neither Seeker could find the Snitch until after we'd built up a 150-point lead."

Jim gave him a sour look. "You're awfully confident to think you could get a lead that big against our Chasers."

"There's nothing wrong with confidence borne of talent, Jim," Harry said almost haughtily.

Jim laughed. "Whatever." Then, he glanced down towards the pitch where Diggory was already giving his team a pep-talk. "It's Hufflepuff. I'm not expecting any problems."

At that, Harry looked at Jim sharply and made a disgruntled face.

"What?" Jim asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Just ... beware the gods of irony."

* * *

_**Later ...** _

Jim hadn't known anything about the gods of irony, who Blaise Zabini had taught most of Slytherin to hate and fear, but he soon received an object lesson in not attracting their wrath. At first, the game seemed under control despite the weather conditions, as Gryffindor quickly built up a small lead. Then, Jim had just spotted the Snitch when the disaster occurred. Somehow, for some mad reason, the Dementors stationed over the Forbidden Forest abandoned their post and swarmed onto the Quidditch pitch! Immediately, a half-dozen corporeal Patronuses sprang into existence to ward the creatures away, along with a score of lesser mist Patronuses. On the ground below, Jim could see Neville's bear, Remus's wolf, and his mother's doe all darting around the Dementors to stall their advance.

But then, he heard a terrifying yet familiar scream and turned just in time to see a Dementor – no,  _that_  Dementor – rise up behind him and grab him by the arm. Instantly, Jim went completely cold as he felt the life draining from him even before the Dementor could lean in for the Kiss. At the last second, the Dementor screamed in pain as a flying silver boar rammed into it. But it was too late for Jim who lost consciousness and fell from his broom. In the distance, he could barely make out the booming voice of Albus Dumbledore cry out " _ **ARRESTO MOMENTUM**_!" before everything went black.

When he came to, everything was over. Hufflepuff had won the match when Diggory caught the Snitch while Jim was fighting for his life against a soul-sucking monster. Of course, the ever-noble Diggory had offered to replay the match, but the equally-noble Oliver Wood declined. No one asked Jim what he thought about having a chance to go up against Diggory again without having to dodge Dementors. Soon after, Madam Pomfrey shooed everyone out of the Infirmary, though Harry, as Jim's brother, was allowed to remain. This also was something no one asked Jim's feelings about.

"What happened to my broom?" Jim finally asked.

"What?" Harry said. "Oh, yeah. I gave it to Neville, so it's probably back in your dorm room by now."

" _You_  gave it to him?" Jim's voice was oddly suspicious. "Why did  _you_  have it?"

"Because, Little Brother," Harry answered cheerfully, "I was the one who saved it from destruction. After you fell off, it went out of control and was headed straight for the Whomping Willow when I tagged it with a Summoning Charm. I know how much that broom means to you."

"I'm sure you do," Jim replied. "And I guess the idea that if it got destroyed, Dad might replace it with a Firebolt never entered your head?"

Harry crooked at eyebrow at the insinuation. "Believe it or not, Jim, but no, that idea never entered my head." Then, he paused and smiled at Jim. "Though the fact that you thought of it demonstrates a wonderful potential for Slytherin thinking that you really ought to cultivate."

Jim stared at his older brother intently but said nothing. Finally, Harry's smile faded away to be replaced with a look of concern.

"Jim, what is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

Jim didn't answer at first, but eventually, he looked away from Harry and up towards the ceiling. Then, he rubbed his hands over his face. "It's ... it's nothing, Harry. I'm sorry. I'm just... I'm tired. Really, really tired."

"... okay. I'll just head on then. Get some rest, and we'll talk again when you're out of here."

Jim didn't answer. He just rolled over in bed with his back to Harry who watched silently for a moment and then turned to leave. He paused at the door to turn back towards Jim once last time before departing.

Alone at last, Jim shut his eyes and tried to rest, but sleep proved impossible. Despite his best efforts, he could not stop thinking about the voice – no,  _voices_! – that he'd heard when the Dementor grabbed him. Voices that he could now clearly recognize, but whose words both confused him and filled him with a terrible, inexplicable dread.

_**"Please! I beg you! Have mercy! Take me! Kill me instead!"** _

_**"Stand aside you silly girl! Stand aside now!"** _

_**"No! Take me! Not Harry! NOT HARRY!"** _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun-dun-DUUUN!
> 
> With that shocking development, I must regretfully announce that the next chapter will not appear before October 1, 2018 at the earliest. The next story arc has a complicated time line, so I want to write out the whole thing completely before I post any of it. Also, my novel is nearly complete, but I have put off finishing the last few chapters for too long. Sorry for the delay.
> 
> In the meantime, readers who wish to discuss this chapter or any other POS-related matters are invited to The Sinister Man's [Discord Server](https://discord.gg/9gSaEyQ).


	24. Random Moments of Weirdness

**_HARRY POTTER_**  
**_AND THE DEATH EATER MENACE_**

****_Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership._  
  


* * *

**_CHAPTER 23: Random Moments of Weirdness_ **

**_14 November 1993_**  
**_Hogwarts_**

In the aftermath of the previous week’s disastrous Quidditch match, the Daily Prophet had been inundated with complaints about the presence of Dementors at Hogwarts, but Minister Fudge was resolute. He was also backed in his decision by James Potter, Amelia Bones and, with obvious reluctance, Albus Dumbledore. The Prophet also printed several letters in support of the Ministry claiming that despite the risk, the Dementors were needed in light of the werewolf attack two weeks earlier. The Hogwarts Headmaster did persuade Fudge to assign more Ministry personnel proficient with the Patronus Charm to the school to monitor the army of Dementors still stationed over the Forbidden Forest. He also announced that while the Dementors were at Hogwarts, Hogsmeade Weekends were limited to students who were able to summon a Patronus, an announcement that lead to much booing from the student body.

In response to the denial of Hogsmeade privileges as much as fear of the Dementors, nearly the entire student body abruptly signed up for Patronus lessons, though it was painfully clear that most of them lacked the willpower (or simply raw power) to master the difficult Charm. Poor Marcus Flint found himself overwhelmed by the sheer number of students attending his classes. Luckily – and to the surprise of nearly everyone – the new caretaker Malachi Sturgeon was apparently a wizard who was himself proficient with the Charm, and Sturgeon agreed to help Flint with his class load. Naturally, this led to an increase in wild rumors about how a skilled wizard ended up working as a caretaker, a job traditionally held by a squib. The consensus view of the Hogwarts rumor mill was that Sturgeon was actually an undercover Auror or possibly even an Unspeakable. This, in turn, led to an increasing number of young girls developing crushes on the brooding, mysterious man much to his own embarrassment.

On the second Sunday afternoon after the match, the Third through Fifth years who were studying the Patronus found themselves in the Great Hall. Somewhat surprisingly, the Third Years as a class were outshining their elders. Harry, Hermione, Theo, and several others in their year had demonstrated at least the beginnings of a mist Patronus, though so far, only Neville had succeeded in producing a corporeal version. Their numbers grew by one more when Anthony Goldstein’s wand lit up with a brilliant ethereal light that lasted for several seconds.

“Well done, Anthony!” Hermione exclaimed. Anthony beamed in response.

“Thank you, Hermione. Oh! And also, thank you for putting me onto that book. I finally found it in the Restricted Section. Well, Madam Pince found it after I told her what I was looking for, and then Professor Flitwick gave me permission to check it out.”

“Which book?” she said in some confusion. Harry crooked an eyebrow.

“The one about magic not working well with either plastics or electricity,” Anthony answered. “ **Magic and Muggles: The Source of Their Inferiority** by Englebert von Smallhausen. It's hideously bigoted but also describes several legitimate experimental studies to determine why magic caused Muggle technology to break down, and they all agreed that magic causes plastics to degrade quickly while also causing fluctuations in electrical resistance.  Quite fascinating ... again except for the hideous bigotry.”

Harry snorted in surprise. “And that’s the book you couldn’t remember the name of, Hermione?” he inquired. “I’d have thought that a name like Englebert von Smallhausen alone would be unforgettable without even addressing the title.”

Hermione made a face. “Yes, yes. I had forgotten what book it was. I’m so sorry that I don’t have your faultless memory, Harry.”

Nearby (but not near enough to be a part of that group), Theo No-Name watched as his friends bantered. He’d deliberately taken up a spot by himself so that none of the people he cared about would be contaminated by the power of the Ultimate Sanction. But where that thought had been depressing a week before, now it was merely annoying. Despite the power of the Sanction, Theo knew who his friends were, even if those friends no longer knew it themselves. He looked to the far side of the room where he could see Neville Longbottom giving some Patronus advice to other Purebloods. Briefly, Longbottom made eye contact with him and sneered (quite impressively for a Gryffindor) before turning away towards Cassius Warrington. Theo shook his head – as if those two would have even been on speaking terms a year before!

Theo closed his eyes and let the tension drain away. Cruel magic may have turned Neville against him, but after his conversation with Hermione in the Astronomy Tower, he had faith and hope again. One day, he would beat the Ultimate Sanction. One day, all his friends would be his friends once more. He drew forth a memory from years before, one he’d not tried previously as a “happy memory,” but which suddenly seemed more appropriate than anything else he’d used.

_“Neville and Hermione are my friends, and they’re in trouble. So I’m there for them. Just like I’m there for you.”_

He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and with one last glance around at Harry, Hermione, and Neville, Theo cast the spell. “ ** _EXPECTO PATRONUM._** ” A silvery mist poured from his wand, stronger and brighter than ever before, but Theo didn’t stop. He pushed more and more of himself into the spell as he focused harder and harder on that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’d first experienced on the way to face Quirrell and rescue Neville and Hermione. The feeling of knowing that he finally had someone other than his brother who he cared about enough to risk dying for.

The mist grew and grew until finally, it collapsed in on itself. And there floating in the air in front of Theo No-Name, was a glowing silvery ... _rabbit_. Theo laughed in delight at the sight of it.

The summoning of a corporeal Patronus -- and especially by a boy who half the students present assumed to be evil in some way -- immediately caused everyone else to stop what they were doing and stare in amazement. Hermione and several other students who were unaffected by the Sanction immediately moved around the boy to show him their support and admiration. On the other side of the room, Neville Longbottom fumed openly as if offended that someone like the Outcast could now become the second youngest person to ever summon a corporeal Patronus. Then, he jumped back in surprise when the flying rabbit darted over towards him almost faster than the eye could follow. It paused in front of his face and twitched its nose almost quizzically before jetting back over to Theo’s side with the same blinding speed.

While several students not under the Sanction’s effects crowded around Theo, Harry (as expected) held back, though his expression and body language made it clear to Theo’s Slytherin eyes how proud he was of his friend.

“It’s beautiful,” Hermione said softly. "What are you going to call it?”

Theo thought for a moment. “Fiver,” he said, giving the name of one of the rabbits from **Watership Down**.

The Muggleborn looked at him with some surprise. “Fiver? Not Hazel?”

Theo smiled and nodded his head in Harry’s direction. “Hazel’s the hero of the story. That’s not me. Fiver’s the hero’s little brother who travels alongside him and has all the good ideas.”

Nearby, Jim Potter watched the display with a smile, as he’d become rather fond of Theo during their martial arts lessons. But then, his attention was drawn to his brother, and his smile faded. He shook his head and tried to focus on his own happy memories such as they were. Then, he cast the spell.

“ ** _EXPECTO PATRONUM_**.”

There was nothing. Not even a wisp of silver.

**_15 November 1993_**  
**_8:00 p.m._**  
**_The Potions classroom_**

True to his word, Professor Snape dragooned Harry into lessons with the obscure and almost certainly illegal Sectumsempra Curse. As with Hermione (who had joined him this day), Snape first required Harry to learn the Vulnera Sanentur Charm which was the only healing spell capable of healing the bloody damage caused by Snape’s custom-designed werewolf-killing curse.

When he could do so with discretion, Harry studied his Head of House with a mixture of surprise and concern, though concealed as best he could through his Occlumency. Intuitively, he realized that Snape was for some reason working extra-hard to control and hide his own emotions as he taught the spell, and yet for some reason, his normally rigid self-control was quite lax today.

“ _I wonder what happened that led him to create this spell_ ,” Harry thought to himself. “ _Whatever it is though, I think he really must hate werewolves as a result. I wonder if he and Reg might end up bonding over the subject._”

By the end of the first session, Harry had already mastered the deadly curse, having successfully damaged the training dummies summoned by Snape with cuts that would be fatal to a living person struck with them. Satisfied, Snape reminded the two to _never_ use the curse except in a true life-or-death situation and then instructed them to clean up the room and return to their dorms before departing himself.

As the two Third Years were straightening up the classroom, Harry decided to ask the question that had been on his mind for some time. He cast a privacy charm on the door, which caused Hermione to look at him in surprise.

“Sorry,” Harry said. “But I’ve been dying to ask you and this is the first chance we’ve had to talk in private. Just between you and me ... what is the deal with that book you and Anthony have been talking about?”

Hermione stiffened slightly. “What makes you think there’s any ... _deal_ to discuss, Harry?”

“Hermione, people say you’re the smartest witch of our age, and I don’t dispute that. But book-smarts don’t make you a good liar, and – no offense – you’re actually a terrible liar.” He paused to reconsider his words. “No, that’s not fair. By non-Slytherin standards, you’re actually not a bad liar at all. But, well, I am a Slytherin who's _really good_ at reading people, and I _can_ tell when you’re lying. You didn’t mean to tell Anthony that plastics and electricity disrupted magic, and you didn’t want to reveal where you’d learned that little fact. I don’t know if you got it from the book Anthony found or from somewhere else. And I don’t know why you want to be so evasive about it. But I do want you to know that, whatever secret you’re hiding and for whatever reason, you can trust me with it. You know that, right?”

She studied him for several seconds as if to evaluate her choices before she finally sighed in resignation. “Harry, do you trust _me_? I mean _really_ trust me?”

Harry started to offer a glib response, but he was suddenly struck by the seriousness and intensity with which Hermione asked the question. He also noticed for the first time how tired the girl was, and for some reason, he no longer thought it was due simply to her heavy course load. And so he took a moment to truly think about the question she’d asked before giving an answer of his own.

“I trust you more than anyone else in the world,” he finally said.

She exhaled softly, and Harry was surprised by how relieved she seemed to be at his response.

“Then I’m going to ask you to trust me when I say I can’t answer any of your questions. Not right now, anyway. Or possibly ever. I mean, if I could tell anyone it would be you. And quite honestly, I _wish_ I could tell you everything because I think your advice would be _really_ helpful right now. But ... I can’t. I can only ask you to ... to let me handle the things I need to handle on my own and without any interference.”

His eyes narrowed as he considered the girl’s cryptic and evasive answer. “Hermione, are you under a secrecy oath of some kind?”

She opened her mouth as if to respond but then snapped it shut almost immediately, which Harry thought was an answer in and of itself.

“Can you tell me if you’re in trouble of some kind? Or if there’s anything I can do to help?”

She bit her lip softly before answering. “I ... wouldn’t say I’m in trouble. I just have some things I need to do ... alone. And when they’re all done, I’ll tell you everything. Well, if I can anyway. As for how you can help, all I can ask is that you trust me to be able to do what I need to do. And,” she swallowed tightly, “and trust me to do it on my own. Please, Harry. For the time being at least, don’t worry about me. And if you see me ... I don’t know, acting _weird_ at any time, just put it out of your head. Can you do that for me, Harry?”

The boy stared at her for what seemed like an eternity but was really only six seconds.

“Alright. I do trust you, and I have a lot of faith in your intelligence and sensibility. If at any point I get the impression that you’re in _danger_ , I’m probably going to stick my nose back in. But up until that point ... I promise to ignore any _weirdness_. Will that do?”

She smiled in relief. “Yes, Harry, and thank you.”

He looked around the room. “I’ll tell you what though. You may not be in any danger, but you’ve obviously been overworking yourself. I’ll finish up here. You can go on to bed.”

Hermione started to protest, but Harry would not be denied and anyway the room was nearly done. So the girl stepped forward and gave him a quick hug, much to his own surprise, before leaving the room. Harry spent a few quick minutes finishing the clean-up as he contemplated the exceedingly strange conversation he’d just had. He was about to put the last of the target dummies away when he had a sudden thought. He took a quick paranoid look around the room and then cast a Silencing Charm on the door. Then, he moved back to the other side of the room and pointed his wand at the last dummy before taking a deep slow breath.

“ ** _SSSECTUMSSSEMPRA_**!” he hissed and to his surprise, there was actually a slight recoil from his wand – something he’d never experienced before – as several waves of intense magical force poured out of it to completely rip the training dummy apart.

And also place several cracks in the blackboard that had been hanging behind it.

Harry stared in amazement at the damage his first serious attempt at Parselmagic had inflicted before he could finally summon the will to speak.

“ _Bloody hell,_ ” he whispered.

It took another half-hour to repair the damage he’d done to Snape’s classroom. When he was done, he took one last look around before exiting.

“What a day,” he said with a rueful shake of his head.

**_21 November 1993_**  
**_The Law Office of Peter Pettigrew, Esq._**

_Peter –_

_As you know, we’ve been through a lot with Jim and Harry over the last year or so, and especially over the last few weeks. The attack on Hogsmeade that left Harry on his own against a pack of werewolves even as we were all focused on getting Jim to safety (and thank you for that, Pete, and for everything else you’ve done for your godson) has forced me to confront the full scope of how badly I’ve let the elder of my sons down. I abandoned him for ten years and schemed against him for another two before I nearly lost him for good. No more._

_I appreciate all you’ve done with regard to Harry since, after all, it’s what I asked of you. You’ve always been a good friend, but right now, I don’t need a friend to enable my worst instincts. I need a friend to tell me when I’m being a horse’s arse. Please make that a priority in all our future dealings. In case I haven’t been clear, I want you to desist in all efforts to remove Harry from the Potter family. Furthermore, please check into the status of the replacement Heir’s Ring. If Harry is amenable and it can be finished in time, I’d like to formally present him with his Ring on his 14th birthday and have him acknowledged as Heir Apparent at that time. I guess Jim will have to settle for just being the second son of a filthy rich family and also the idol of millions._

_I know it’s a big switch from our prior conversations, but if you have any thoughts on how I can make it up to Harry for how I’ve treated him, I’m all ears. Also, I hope you can find the time to get to know Harry yourself and develop a bond with him. You’ve been a wonderful godfather for Jim, but since Harry’s own godfather is a filthy traitor who will hopefully never get within a hundred miles of him, I would be very grateful if you could assume a godfatherly role for Harry if only informally._

_You should come over for dinner sometime. It’s a bit lonely at Potter Manor by myself. Let me know when you’re free._

_– James_

Peter read the letter from his best friend and best client three times, with his face growing increasingly dour with each read-through. Over by the window, James’s owl Godric was perched on the sill waiting for a reply or at least a treat. Finally, it hooted loudly as if to get Peter’s attention. In that, the bird succeeded as the solicitor wadded up the letter and threw it forcefully at the owl’s head. Godric hooted again, more indignantly this time, as he narrowly dodged the projectile before flapping out of the window.

“Well,” Peter said to no one, “this day is off to a fairly wretched start. I wonder what disaster will strike next.”

As if in karmic response, there was a soft knock at his door before his receptionist Yvette entered.

“My apologies, Mr. Pettigrew, but someone is here to see you.”

Peter grunted. “Well, I don’t have anyone scheduled, and I’m not in the mood for a walk-in client. Tell them to make an appointment for next week.”

Before Yvette could respond, the visitor swept past her into the office. Peter immediately jumped to his feet as he recognized the young woman standing before him.

“Do forgive my directness, Mr. Pettigrew,” said Cassilda Selwyn as she smoothly slipped out of her traveling cloak and handed it to the surprised Yvette. “But I find that I am not inclined to wait a week before speaking with you. Nor am I inclined to be treated like common rabble come to retain your services for some tedious domestic dispute.”

Peter grimaced while straightening his tie. “Do forgive me, Lady Selwyn. I was ... unprepared for a surprise visit from a personage as august as yourself. What can I do for you?”

She smiled in a way that a less astute person would find courteous. Peter, however, was quite astute and also quite knowledgeable about the House Selwyn’s true role in the last war. And consequently, he found the woman’s smile to be distinctly troubling.

“Well, Mr. Pettigrew, as it happens, I’ve been having the most engaging conversations with a mutual friend we share. And based on his ... revelations, I do believe that there’s a great deal we can do for each other.”

Her smile grew and become even more charming and yet somehow more predatory. Peter licked his lips unconsciously. “ _Oh yes,_ ” he thought to himself as he invited his visitor to take a seat. “ _This day just keeps getting better and better._ ”

**_28 November 1993_**  
**_12 Grimmauld Place_**

By the end of November, Sirius Black had recuperated enough to move around with Dobby’s assistance. On this particular day, he was in the main downstairs parlor warming himself next to the fireplace. In addition to warmth, the change of scenery had the added benefit of getting him farther away from Kreacher’s rantings. The mad elf had taken to hiding in the attic where he would prostrate himself for hours before the picture of Walburga Black that was still shouting insanely from her perch on the isolated patch of wall that Dobby had liberated from the main foyer.

Sirius had just opened the Prophet while indulging in some delicious watercress sandwiches made by Dobby when the orange flames in the fireplace suddenly turned a brilliant green and an obese man in coveralls and a cap stepped through with a heavy toolbox in one hand. Sirius jumped out of his chair and fumbled for his wand, but before he could cast his spell, his legs gave way, and he fell unceremoniously to the floor.

The big man looked down at him and shook his head.

“Honestly, Sirius, get a hold of yourself. It’s only me.”

While still on the floor, Sirius was still able to point his wand (or rather his Uncle Alphard’s wand) at the intruder.

“Me who?” he demanded.

The big man scoffed before shaking his whole body violently. After a few seconds of blurring, the intruder was revealed as Regulus Black, now wearing coveralls at least three sizes too big.

“Me, your long-suffering brother who still needs to finish getting the Floo set up, so kindly don’t hex me while I’m working.” Reg clucked his tongue and set the toolbox on the floor before helping Sirius back to his chair.

“Floo ... set up? Since when do you know how to set up a Floo?” Sirius scoffed.

Regulus shrugged. “In Australia, Aurors are required to learn how to operate the Floo Network in order to facilitate raids and to stop suspects from escaping that way. Apparently, it’s different here in Britain, presumably because the bureaucratic thicket that runs the Floo Network Authority doesn’t want the DMLE or any other bureaucratic thickets intruding on their turf. The shape I was wearing just now was that of Angus McDougal, a fairly thick-headed 50-year-old wizard who barely passed his OWLS but got a job working with the Floo Network Authority through nepotism.”

“Uh-huh. And where was he while you were wearing his face?”

Regulus smirked. “I believe he was in Knockturn Alley cavorting with a prostitute provided to him by Lucius for certain favors completely unrelated to my own activities. Lucius and I have been setting this up for weeks. I’ve impersonated a total of seven different people in order to get approval for a Floo link-up here at Grimmauld Place while simultaneously concealing all records and evidence of its existence. Meanwhile, he’s bribed twice as many people to do seemingly innocuous favors that have no obvious connection to our ultimate aims. Of course, we’ll be somewhat limited in that we can only Floo to Longbottom Manor or Malfoy Manor at first, but it will make it a lot easier for Harry to come and visit here over the holidays.”

Sirius brightened at that, but then he became concerned. “And you’re sure no one will be able to track this back to us and use it to break into this place?”

“Positive,” Regulus sniffed. “Lucius and I are Slytherins, Sirius. This is the sort of thing we do every day before breakfast.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and went back to reading his paper while his brother opened up his toolbox and set to work.

**_10 December 1993_**  
**_Hogwarts_**

November passed into December largely without incident. The Daily Prophet remained as histrionic as ever, but then there were no further werewolf attacks, no further Dementor attacks, and no further sightings of Sirius Black or anyone who even looked like Sirius Black. The various clubs continued to meet weekly. The Hogwarts Cultural Preservation Society held dignified tea parties while discussing the finer points of Pureblood culture and history along with increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories about what Theo No-Name must have done to be judged worthy of the Sanction ... and also how he was able to command so much support from the school’s Muggleborns. _"Dark_ Magic" was the emerging consensus. To Club President Diggory’s disappointment, only a few Muggleborns came to see what the club was about, but almost none did so more than once. When Cedric talked with them later, their complaints were vague and evasive. It seemed that while none of the club members were ever overtly rude to them, most of the Muggleborn attendees said that the group made them feel uncomfortable for reasons they couldn’t quite articulate. The one exception was Justin Finch-Fletchley, whose unique status put him on the boundary between Muggleborn and Pureblood in a way that applied to no one else. Justin had attended three meetings before dropping out citing his other responsibilities. But he and Diggory were both Hufflepuffs, and after some prodding, Justin finally admitted that he’d gotten tired of certain people sniffing disdainfully every time he asked a question about something Purebloods were expected to have learned by the age of five.

Meanwhile, SPAM’s meetings were less dignified but better attended, particularly after Harry somehow got the house elves to provide Muggle treats like sodas, ice cream, and Oreo cookies. Also, to Anthony Goldstein’s delight, an increasingly large part of each meeting was given over to brainstorming about how Muggle innovations could be reproduced magically. There were, of course, limitations on just how far a group of teenagers could go in such inquiries. At one point, Colin Creevey asked if it were possible to transfigure something into antimatter. The boy didn’t actually know anything about antimatter beyond what he’d heard discussed on _Star Trek_ , but the question completely horrified Hermione, Anthony, and Sue Li (the only three who even understood the question). All of them agreed that none of them should consider experimenting with using magic in the context of particle physics until after graduation, if ever. Then, Jim got involved by revealing that his mother had several Muggle college degrees including one for Physics. Harry was surprised, and not just about his mother’s academic activities – Jim had been avoiding him for weeks, and this was the most they’d talked, even if it was as part of a crowd. Jim further agreed to talk with Lily and see if she would be willing to meet with SPAM and discuss the intersection of magic and Muggle science.

It was after one such SPAM meeting when Harry approached Hermione about joining Blaise and himself in working on a runic array for their Ancient Runes class. To Harry’s disappointment, Hermione had already agreed to work with Anthony Goldstein and Sue Li, who had decided on some sort of home defense enchantment.

“I’m sorry, Harry, but Anthony asked me first,” she said with some regret, though not as much as Harry thought appropriate. He narrowed his eyes.

“To be honest, I’d assumed based on past performance that _you_ would have already approached _me_ about a project. You do tend to stay three or so months ahead of everyone else when it comes to schoolwork.” Then, he narrowed his eyes. “Is this a _weird_ thing?” he asked suspiciously.

Hermione scoffed. “Not everything in my life is the product of ... _personal weirdness_ , Harry,” she replied.

He nodded at that. “I notice you didn’t actually say _no_ , Hermione.”

She made a face but said nothing more.

**_17 December 1993  
Hogwarts_ **

During the last week before Christmas Break, Professor Scrimgeour finally held his much-anticipated dueling tournament. Harry had been looking forward to it, but he was ultimately disappointed with his final placement, mainly because of handicaps placed on him by his various mentors. Snape had forbidden him to use dilation during the tournament because it might reveal how far he’d progressed as an Occlumens and that might cause future problems with the Ministry. Moody had forbidden him to wandlessly summon any opponent’s wand or to use any illusion-based Charms because they were the sort of skills best kept as a secret weapon. Besides, there were logistical problems using wandless summoning in a duel since the Summoning Charm did not function as well when used against an item in active use. Harry could easily summon a wand from a holster or even someone’s hand if held in a light grip, but the spell would not work as well to summon a wand actively being used for spellcasting. Indeed, that limitation on the Accio Charm was what led to the subsequent creation of the Expelliarmus which, in contrast, could only work on someone who was considered armed in some sense. And finally, while Regulus did not forbid him to use any specific jinxes or hexes, he did order him to underplay his skills in general. After all, the boy would be debuting on the European junior dueling circuit the following summer, and Regulus was of the opinion that being a virtual unknown would be a better starting point for his dueling career than being “the kid who easily beat the Boy-Who-Lived” which would have every would-be duelist in his age group gunning for him before the first round.

All those limitations severely cramped Harry’s style, with the end result that he only made it to the Quarterfinals before being eliminated by Justin Finch-Fletchley. The other boy was not a spectacular duelist when it came to spellwork, but after a year of practice, his skill with the Averto shield was phenomenal. The duel between Justin and Harry was one of the longest of the tournament, but Harry was simply unable to penetrate Justin’s defense (or at least, unable to do so without taking advantage of skills his mentors thought were best held in reserve), and eventually, the Muggleborn simply tired him out.

The 3rd Year Dueling Finalists were Justin and Jim, and the two were evenly matched to start. While Justin could parry nearly any attack, Jim with his Wu Xi Do training could dodge nearly any attack even in the small confines of a dueling platform. In the end, however, Jim’s superior range of spells acquired through several years of specialized training won out, and Justin took the silver medal to Jim’s gold. Harry enthusiastically congratulated both his friend and his brother for their success without giving any hint that he’d spotted several weak spots in each of their techniques and that he was confident of beating each of them if the situation ever demanded that he not hold back.

Harry also noted how reluctant Jim was to shake his hand. Or to even make eye contact with him. And so, the young Slytherin decided that enough was enough, and with some assistance from Hermione and a reluctant Ron, Harry was able to corner Jim in a classroom while on his way to the reception to be held after the tournament.

“Right, Jim,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Jim looked at the faces of his brother and friends with some trepidation. “Um, about what?” he asked cautiously.

“I hate to say it, mate,” Ron said apologetically, “but you’ve been acting odd for weeks, ever since the Dementor attack. Harry came to me and said you’d been acting especially cold towards him, and he asked me if I knew why. I didn’t, but I agreed with him that you’ve basically been flinching every time Harry looked at you. And, well, after everything that happened to _me_ last year, I try to pay attention when people suddenly aren’t acting like themselves.”

“You think I’m ... _possessed_ or something?” Jim asked incredulously.

“No,” Harry said. “But we do all think you’ve been acting strangely, particularly towards me. And when people I care about start acting weird, I take an interest.” As he said those words, both Harry and Hermione resolutely did not make eye contact.

Jim looked down at the floor for a few moments as if to hide his obvious discomfort. Then, he looked up at Hermione. “And why are _you_ here?

The question seemed to surprise the witch. “Moral support, I suppose? Both Harry and Ron asked me to be here. I guess they thought I might have something to offer.”

“Like a Seer’s prediction?” Jim asked harshly. At first, Hermione thought he was teasing her, but then she realized to her shock that he was being quite serious.

“Jim,” she stammered, “I’m _not_ a Seer. I’m just someone who can apply common sense to what she sees in front of her. Obviously, that looks like precognition to the more credulous witches and wizards, but what does this whole Seer nonsense have to do with whatever has you upset?”

Jim fumed for a moment, but then the fight seemed to go out of him. He sat down in one of the chairs.

“Do you remember that fight we had after our very first Potions lesson. The one when I was being ... ‘ _a braying ass_ ’?”

Ron laughed. “Who could ever forget it?”

Jim wasn’t laughing. “And do you remember what you said in the Common Room? _Wouldn’t it be funny if it had been Harry who destroyed You-Know-Who and our parents sent him away and put me forward as the Boy-Who-Lived in order to draw attention away from him?_ ”

Harry fumed and rolled his eyes. “ _Oh for God’s sake_ ,” he thought to himself. “ _This again!_ ”

“Jim,” Hermione stammered. “I’m not a Seer, and what I said to you wasn’t some prophetic vision. It was me being intentionally mean and provocative to you because you’d made me very angry. And if it’s still something you’re upset about, let me take this chance to apologize to you.”

“Hang on. That was two years ago!” Ron exclaimed. “What’s brought this on now?” But it was Harry who answered.

“Last year, Jim's boggart fear consisted of people suggesting he wasn’t worthy of being the Boy-Who-Lived,” Harry said bluntly. “I’d hoped he’d gotten over that, but something happened to put him back in a petty funk over it.”

Jim’s face clouded over in anger, but then, it faded as quickly as it arose. He rubbed his hands over his face.

“Harry, when I get near Dementors, I remember ... that night. I remember Voldemort attacking us. I remember him laughing at Mum and telling her to move aside.” He took a deep breath. “And I remember her begging Voldemort to kill her ... instead of you.” The other three were shocked at the revelation. “‘ _Not Harry!_ ’ That’s what she said. She didn’t even mention me being there.”

He turned to Hermione. “That’s why I was wondering about all the signs of you being a Seer. Isn’t it possible that you really are a Seer but don’t know it? And when you blurted that out during our First Year, you were revealing the truth about the Boy-Who-Lived?”

Harry stepped forward, now obviously annoyed. “Well, that’s possible, I suppose. But permit me to suggest a far more likely theory – YOU’RE AN IDIOT!”

At that, Jim jumped out of his chair as if ready to fight his brother, but Harry simply stepped forward and got in his face. “Jim, just tell me one thing! What. Do. Dementors. Do?”

Caught off guard, Jim blinked repeatedly. “Um, they guard Azkaban?”

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

“I think Harry is referring to the Dementor’s powers,” said Hermione. “Such as their ability to force their victims to relieve bad memories.”

“Five points to Gryffindor,” Harry muttered sarcastically. “And what else?”

“Oh, oh!” added Ron excitedly, “they also drain you of your good memories.”

“And there’s another five points,” Harry added. “Pity I’m not a professor. Anyway, let’s recap: Last year, your boggart fear was people telling you that you weren’t worthy of being the Chosen One. This year, Dementors edged slightly ahead of childish insecurities, but those feelings were still there. So what happens when a Dementor grabs you and gets almost close enough for the Kiss? You suddenly have an implausible and suspiciously-timed auditory hallucination that seems to validate your earlier insecurities by making you think that your mother considers me more important than you, even though she was the one who ....”

He paused and shook his head. “Never mind what she did. I want to get past all that and you should too. My point is, there is nothing reliable about this recovered memory you claim to have since you only remember it while under a psychic attack. Plus, while I still have issues about Lily Potter’s parenting skills, I find it wildly improbable that she would ever act the way you claim she did towards only one of her children. If those events happened _at all_ as you say, I think it more likely that Lily offered up her life in exchange for _both_ her children, but the Dementor effects cause you to remember it wrong. And _finally_ , if you still have any doubts that you’re the Chosen One, may I remind you that you _melted_ Professor Quirrell when you were eleven and stabbed a Basilisk to death when you were twelve. It should be pretty obvious to anyone with a brain larger than a grape seed which of us is the great conquering hero and it’s not the Slimy Slytherin.”

Jim absorbed Harry’s monologue and then looked to his older twin almost bashfully. “I told you I wasn’t going to call any Slytherins slimy anymore. Least of all you.”

“Yes, well. Regardless of how personally slimy I may or may not be, I am a Slytherin, and there’s no way I’m going to let you fob your Voldemort-slaying duties off on me just because some floaty abomination tried to Kiss you and gave you an angst-overdose. You’re the Boy-Who-Lived. Suck it up and deal with it.”

Jim’s eyes widened. And then he burst into laughter. “Alright, alright. I’m ... sorry I’ve been a git about what happened. And ... thank you ... all three of you for getting my head back on straight for me.”

“So, are we brothers again?” Harry asked as he extended his hand. Jim clasped it warmly

“Yeah, we’re brothers.”

Harry smiled. “Good. So in the spirit of brotherly affection ... can I borrow the Cloak tomorrow?”

“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed at his brashness.

“Pfft! Way to ruin the mood, Harry!” Jim said with a smile.

Harry shrugged unrepentantly. “I’m a Slytherin, Jim. If you’re going to have me as your brother, dealing with my crass cynicism and emotional manipulation is the price you have to pay for all my natural brilliance.”

**_Later that night ..._ **

After the reception, Ron and Jim were walking back to their dorm with full stomachs.

“Hey, Ron,” Jim asked. “You’re not mad at Harry, are you?”

Ron looked at him in confusion. “Why would I be mad at Harry? He said what you needed to hear to get over the Dementor attack.”

“Yeah, but he only did it to get me to lend him the Cloak.”

Ron snorted. “Come on, Jim. You know it was more than that. Harry really does care about you and really was concerned about you. The fact that he decided to get something he wanted while in the process of helping you doesn’t change any of that.”

“It doesn’t?” Jim said with some amusement. “So it doesn’t bug you to see Harry being manipulative like that? Even with me?”

“Jim, after last year? It would be _beyond_ _hypocritical_ of me to complain about Slytherins manipulating people so long as they’re not trying to hurt them in the process. Besides, Harry’s one of the good guys. It would be a good thing for everyone if he ended up running the showdown in the Slytherin dungeons.”

Jim nodded agreeably. “Yeah, I can see that. Give him a few years, and Harry will be the King of Slytherin.”

“Prince,” Ron said distractedly.

“What?” Jim asked.

“Eh?” Ron answered in confusion.

“You said Harry would be Slytherin’s Prince instead of its King. What does that mean?”

Ron opened his mouth but then stopped, his brow furrowing in confusion. From somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, the boy suddenly recalled a brief snippet of conversation in the form of sibilant hisses produced by two strangely familiar voices that echoed along the walls of a huge sunken chamber. But then, as quickly as it emerged, the memory was gone again. Ron shrugged.

“Honestly, I haven’t the faintest clue why I said that.” But then, he frowned. “But I have the oddest feeling that it’s going to be important somehow.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
> 
> UPDATE SCHEDULE!  
> November 4, 2018 - Preview of next chapter uploaded to The Sinister Man's website and available to Discord members. Check my author page for links.  
> November 8, 2018 - Next chapter of my novel, Strangers In Boston, uploaded to The Sinister Man's website and available to patrons. Check my author page for links.  
> November 11, 2018 - Next chapter uploaded to The Sinister Man's website and available to Discord members. Check my author page for links.  
> November 14, 2018 - Next chapter uploaded to this site and to AO3.
> 
> AN 1: In addition to the Discord site and the [REDACTED] site for my patrons, my Author Page also has links to the POS Wiki and the POS TV Tropes. We may even have a Reddit page by now, though such mysteries elude me.


	25. Interlude No 1

## *Chapter 107*: HP&DEM24 - Interlude No 1

_**Harry Potter  
and the Death Eater Menace** _

* * *

_**Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.** _

* * *

_**CHAPTER 24: Interlude No. 1** _

_**18 December 1993  
Poolside at the Hotel Grand Sol, Ibiza** _

Johnny took another sip of his mojito as he watched the parade of oiled and tanned girls slinking around in their bikinis as the sun dipped down over the Ibiza skyline towards the Mediterranean. While he was enjoying the view, Johnny increasingly found himself disappointed and depressed that so few of the young women were returning his glances. He was still good-looking and in excellent shape, but Johnny had just turned 31, and on Ibiza, 31 might as well have been a rotting corpse in the eyes of the club kids who came to experience the island's legendary decadence. While an unpleasant thought to consider, Johnny was forced to admit that it was a sentiment he probably shared when he was that young. Not that he personally had many memories to support such an assumption.

When Johnny was just 17 and living in America, he and his parents had been in a terrible car wreck. Johnny himself remembered nothing about the accident – unsurprising as the accident had caused significant brain damage and left him in a coma for two years. Luckily, he suffered almost no physical damage, but when he awoke two years later, he discovered that he'd lost  _all_  his memories from before the accident. In the twelve years since Johnny had never been able to recall  _anything_ from his pre-crash life. He'd been  _told_  a great deal, but he  _remembered_ nothing, and when he looked at pictures of his deceased parents, they were strangers for whom he felt not the tiniest connection. Well, except for gratitude, he supposed. Johnny's late parents, Richard and Jane Janosky of Kenosha, Wisconsin, had left him a sizeable inheritance after the accident, and other than his retrograde amnesia, he was perfectly healthy. Specifically, he was at that time a perfectly healthy 19-year-old with a multi-million-dollar trust fund to cover all his living expenses but no living relatives or friends to counsel him against moving to the party capital of Europe where he could drink cocktails by the pool and chase girls (and when he was sufficiently drunk or bored, boys) forever.

But that was twelve years ago, and after more than a decade of sex, drugs, and Eurotrash techno music, Johnny was becoming jaded. Life on Ibiza meant seeing humanity at its most alluring but also at its most vapid and banal, and at 31, Johnny had settled into a constant state of vague misanthropy. Not quite a feeling that he was better than anyone else. It was more like Johnny was average … and most people  _still_  managed to be his inferiors. He knew that by this point he was simply wasting his time on Ibiza in the futile hope that someone on his level would walk through the door.

And then, someone did.

She was older than every other woman in the pool area by far. Hell, Johnny was pretty sure she was older than  _him_ , and he was probably the oldest person at the hotel who wasn't on staff. But somehow that only heightened her allure, because she was not only beautiful but confident.  _Supremely_  confident. And  _man_  could she fill out what was easily a $500 bathing suit. So much so that Johnny could only smirk as some of the more notorious studs around the pool moved towards her to offer a drink only to step aside slack-jawed at a haughty turn of her head. Johnny wondered what on earth a goddess like this could possibly want in a place like this. He was stunned when he finally realized it was  _him._ As the woman moved gracefully towards his table, Johnny rose and pulled out a chair for her without really understanding the impulse. She smiled at him, and suddenly, he felt a strange quivering in his stomach. And also about twelve inches lower. Suddenly, Johnny was quite glad he'd rejected the local men's fashion of tight speedos in favor of baggy swimming trunks.

"You have good manners," she said in a lyrical voice. "I had despaired of finding anyone on this miserable island about whom that could be said."

Johnny smiled back with more confidence than he felt. He felt quite certain that she was out of his league, but fate had led her to him, it seemed, so he would do the best he could to get her into bed anyway. If nothing else, he was enjoying the jealous looks he was presently getting from all the other guys who'd been too intimidated to even speak to her.

"My mother used to say ' _Manners maketh the man_ ,'" he replied casually as he produced a lighter to light the cigarette she'd just produced from her bag. She took a long drag on the cigarette and then breathed the smoke out in a manner somehow more sensual than Johnny had ever imagined possible. He gulped despite himself.

"Did she really?" the woman said with some strange amusement, though Johnny couldn't tell what was so funny. For a moment, he honestly couldn't think of a single thing to say before he finally remembered the rules of basic social interaction.

"Johnny's the name," he said with a slight stammer that he covered with his most charming smile. "Johnny Janosky."

"My, how … alliterative." There it was again, Johnny thought. A strange amusement, as if she were toying with him. Johnny shrugged.

"Johnny's not actually my given name," he said. "But I hate that name and never use it. Johnny and Janosky sound enough alike to get by. And you are?"

She took another drag on the cigarette, and then breathed out three perfect rings. Johnny blushed and adjusted his seating position slightly in response.

"Narcissa," she finally said. "Though my  _best_  friends call me  _Cissy_."

* * *

_**Later in Johnny's extravagantly overpriced suite …** _

Two hours later, Johnny had apparently made it all the way to  _best friend_  status, as he and Cissy had made it back to his hotel suite to engage in the most mind-blowing sex he had ever experienced. Thirty minutes after that, Johnny woke up and was mortified to realize that he'd actually fallen asleep after they were both done. (Well, after  _he_  was done, at least. He certainly  _hoped_  that he'd satisfied the older woman.) Or possibly, he simply passed out from sheer exhaustion. Either way, Cissy wasn't in his bed when he regained consciousness. He slammed his head back against his pillow in frustration, furious that he'd blown his chances with someone as incredible as her. But then, he heard a sound from the living area like a chair being dragged across the floor. Instantly, he hopped out of bed and pulled his boxers back on before going to investigate. To his surprise, Cissy was there, now fully-attired in a fashionable cocktail dress that showed off every curve. Standing next to her was the recliner which had been repositioned for some reason.

"Have a seat, Johnny," she said imperiously. "The lovemaking is done for now – not bad, by the way, all things considered – but it's really time for us to talk business."

"Business?" he said in confusion before his face went pale and his eyes widened. "Oh my God, you're a high-class prostitute! Listen, I never offered you any money or anything, so this is  _pure entrapment_!"

She laughed. "Oh Johnny, I do find you charming like this. I hope some of this facet of you survives what's going to happen next."

He took a step back. "Um … what  _is_  going to happen next?"

She didn't answer at first. Instead, she opened her purse and reached inside. Johnny nearly made a break for it, certain that she was going to pull out a gun. But to his surprise, she instead pulled out … a stick. And even more surprisingly, the stick looked like it was too long to have fit in the tiny clutch purse in the first place!

"Do you have any idea what this is, Johnny?" she asked with a smirk.

"… a stick, I guess?" he said cautiously. She laughed.

"Yes, Johnny. It's a stick." And then, Cissy barked out strange words in some language foreign to Johnny even as she gestured sharply with the wooden rod in her hand. And to the man's shock, he was lifted bodily off the ground and rudely dropped onto the recliner before thick ropes appeared from nowhere and tied him down onto it. Quite understandably, Johnny Janosky freaked the hell out.

"WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK JUST HAPPENED!" he screamed. Then, Cissy swished her  _magic stick_  again ( _ **SILENCIO!**_ ) and he was suddenly unable to speak.

"Johnny," she said patiently as if talking to a child. "There are things we need to discuss, and that's not going to be possible if you insist on throwing a tantrum. Now, will you speak civilly if I remove my silencing spell?"

He nodded in terror as she flicked her wand again.

"Sp-spell?" he stammered. "You mean … a  _magic_  spell?"

"But of course!" Narcissa Black answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "What other kinds of spell are there worth talking about? I am a witch, this is my magic wand, and it allows me to cast spells."

"Is that how you got me to bring you home? You put some kind of love spell on me with that thing?"

She laughed. "Oh, you poor summer child. I hardly needed any magic at all to get you to take me home with you. Certainly, nothing that required a wand. Just my … allure. Mind you, it's hardly a natural allure. Rather, it's the product of a gift I received many years ago from a French Veela." She paused as if considering what she'd just said. "Well, I suppose ' _gift'_  isn't the right word to describe certain internal organs removed after the pitiful creature's death. I mean, there was hardly anything voluntary on her part. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a  _contribution_  instead."

She focused her attention on Johnny. "Did you understand any of that, my poppet?"

Johnny swallowed painfully. "I think … I think there was some woman … or maybe something like a woman … called a Veela. And you killed her for something about her that you used to make yourself …  _ultra-sexy_?" he finished lamely. Narcissa smirked in response.

"Well done, Johnny. To be completely accurate, I didn't personally kill the Veela. My parents paid someone else to do it and prepare the elixir that required her …  _contribution_. It was a graduation present for passing all my NEWTs. But still, well done! And I was so afraid that your time here in this den of iniquity would have diminished your powerful intellect. Twelve OWLs, wasn't it?"

"What?" he asked in confusion. "I don't … nevermind. What do you want from me? Are … are you going to kill me like you did that Veela woman?"

"Yes," she said plainly. Instantly, Johnny gave out a loud sob. "And no!" she continued almost cheerfully. "I suppose whether what happens next can be considered ' _killing_ ' really depends on one's point of view."

By this point, Johnny was openly weeping in terror. "Please! I don't … what do you want with  _me_?! Do you want money? What do you want?!"

"I want  _you_  … Bartholomew Janosky."

"Don't call me that!" Johnny spat out. "I hate that name!"

"Oh?" she said in mock surprise. "Shall I christen you with another name instead?" Slowly, she moved around behind the crying, terrified man.

"I'm sure you've had a grand vacation here in this filthy Muggle fleshpot, my poppet. But playtime is over. You're needed now." Then, she bent down to whisper in his left ear.

" _You've slept long enough, Mr. January. Time to wake up._ "

And Bartholomew "Johnny" Janosky  _ **screamed**_  as his mind was ripped apart. Despite the heavy ropes, he thrashed wildly in his chair from the pain of every single memory he'd acquired over the last fourteen years getting ripped out, disassembled, sifted, and discarded by someone else. Someone who had slumbered for a long, long time but who was now awake and angry and  _ravenous._

"IT HURTS!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"I know, poppet, I know," she said with false sympathy. "I had a child once, so I know how painful birth can be. I can only imagine that  _rebirth_  is so much worse."

He screamed again, and in response, someone in the next room started banging on the connecting wall and yelling in an angry Spanish voice. Without ever taking her eyes off Johnny, Narcissa flicked her wand towards the disturbance. There was a brilliant red flash that passed right through the wall - an incredibly illegal but highly-effective Muggle-slaying curse she'd found in the Black Library when she was 12 - and the belligerent Spanish words on the other side were instantly cut off by a wet gurgle followed by the sound of a body falling to the ground in more than a dozen pieces.

Finally, Johnny gave out one last bellow of agony, rage, and despair. It was the final desperate scream of someone who knew he was dying and utterly powerless to prevent it and who  _didn't even know why_. Then, he ceased all noise and sagged down in the chair, his head lolling down to his chest. Narcissa carefully knelt and gently put a hand on his knee.

"Mr. January? Are you with us?" she whispered.

The man who had been a rich, oversexed-but-basically-decent American orphan named Johnny Janosky for the last fourteen years raised his head up and peered deeply into her eyes. She peered back and was pleased. Johnny's amiable expression was gone, replaced by a bitter and cold countenance with just a hint of homicidal madness. It was a face that promised endless suffering to anyone who defied his Master's will … or who simply crossed his path on a wrong day.

"I'm with you," said Barty Crouch Jr. with a commanding sneer. "What does he want me to do?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: Obviously, this is a shorter update than I've done in years, but I've had to do an insane amount of traveling that kept me from doing the Snape-Harry focused chapter that I'd planned for today. And I really needed to put this sequence in somewhere but could never figure out where it was going to fit. Despite its shortness, it's inspired some very interesting discussion over at the Sinister Man's discord page. You can find a link to that, along with the POS wiki and TV Tropes pages as well as to my original fiction, on my author page.
> 
> AN 2: Update Schedule (barring unexpected calamity).
> 
> Nov 21 – the next chapter of Strangers In Boston at my website for Patrons.  
> Nov 25(ish) – Chapter 108 of POS at my website available free to all Discord members.  
> Nov 28 – Chapter 108 of POS here and on AO3.
> 
> And then the holidays will probably screw everything up.
> 
> AN 3: Thanks to my crack editors at the Discord POS-Editorial chat: patronus, Imperialanirudh, FeatherMinx, and (of course) the indescribable Ozzie.


	26. Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (Pt 1)

**_Harry Potter  
and the Death Eater Menace_ **

**_Harry Potter and all associate characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership._ **

**_CHAPTER 25: Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (pt 1)_ **

**_Many years ago …_ **

_Cautiously, Severus Snape made his way down the dark passageway, his Lumos spell the only dim source of light. A part of him still thought this was a bad idea, that Black had only given him the secret to bypassing the Whomping Willow so that he and his fellow miscreants could trap him with a sneak attack and do …. Well, he wasn’t entirely sure what they could do that was worse than stripping him in the Courtyard in front of dozens of classmates. Then again, the Head Boy had intervened before he could be completely denuded. Perhaps their plan now was to complete the job – capture him (four-on-one like the cowards they were) and send him running back to the Slytherin dorms like a Muggle streaker._

_Still, this was his best chance to catch the accursed Marauders in something so blatantly illegal that Dumbledore would have no choice but to expel or at least suspend them. Perhaps with them out of the way, Lily might …._

_“No,” he thought grimly. “She will never forgive me.”_

_Still, if he could ruin Potter somehow, at least he could be spared the final indignity of watching Lily Evans date the wretched swine. He had no idea how Potter could have finally worn Lily down into going out with him – he suspected potions – but if the rumors were true, the two would be going to Hogsmeade together in a week’s time. Admittedly, it was quite petty for Snape to go to such lengths to keep Lily and Potter apart. But despite Lily’s rejection of him, Snape simply could not bear the thought of her throwing her future away for a reprobate who would most likely steal her virginity in a squalid broom cupboard … along with her underwear (which according to some rumors, he collected from all his conquests)._

_Finally, in the dim light of his Lumos, Snape could see a doorway twenty feet up ahead. He moved towards it carefully until, to his surprise, he heard a voice calling out to him from behind. A hated voice he recognized at once._

_“SNAPE!” yelled James Potter in an urgent and possibly terrified voice. “COME BACK! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”_

_The Slytherin sneered. If Potter was here and insistent that he not proceed, then obviously, this wasn’t a Marauder trap after all. He quickly darted ahead to the door, heedless of the panicked voice of James Potter who was sprinting up the passageway behind him._

_“SNAPE! FOR MERLIN’S SAKE, STOP!!”_

_The Marauder was close behind, but not close enough. Snape grasped the handle of the door and pushed with all his might. The door flew open, and inside …._

_GREY FUR_  
SHARP TEETH  
YELLOW EYES  
HUGE CLAWS  
HUNGRY, SO HUNGRY  
AND SO FULL OF RAGE  
MAD HOWLING  
CHARGING TOWARDS ME  
PLEASE, I DON’T WANT TO DIE!

**_Now ..._ **

With a loud gasp, Snape shot up in bed. He sat there for several minutes as his heart rate and breathing slowed to normal. Then, he wiped the sweat from his brow and pulled himself out of bed, muttering curses as he did. It had been years since he’d had the nightmares. Indeed, he thought he’d finally gotten past them. But it seemed that merely hearing the details of a werewolf attack on nearby Hogsmeade had been enough to trigger them once more. A Muggle doctor would have described his condition as PTSD, but among wizarding healers, this specific night terror was known as _wolf-fear_. It was a well-documented aftereffect of surviving a werewolf attack without infection, as the supernatural fear induced by the beast lingered for years or decades. Only Animagi and fourth-tier Occlumens were immune. Had his own Occlumency been stronger back then, he might have resisted and been able to defend himself instead of curling up into a ball and relying on Potter – _fucking Potter!_ – to save him. Instead, the wolf-fear dug its claws in deep within Snape’s psyche, and it seemed no amount of psychic mastery could dislodge them for good.

That night wasn’t the beginning or end of Snape’s ruination, but it was certainly a factor. Not only had Dumbledore refused to punish his precious Marauders beyond giving Sirius Black a month of detention, he also forced Snape into an Unbreakable Vow never to reveal the secret of Remus Lupin’s lycanthropy! After all these years, Snape still wasn’t sure how that had happened, though he assumed the Headmaster had somehow taken advantage of him while he was still delirious from wolf-fear and trauma. If such oaths did not require completely willing participation, Snape might well have thought Dumbledore had Confunded him or worse.

But whatever oaths he’d been made to swear, he could still hold resentments. And he had. He almost didn’t even apply for the Hogwarts Potions Master position after Slughorn’s retirement announcement because it meant working under Dumbledore. And when he heard those fateful words from Trelawney, he fled straight to the Dark Lord in part because he feared what Dumbledore might do to keep the Prophecy a secret even before he learned that it applied to the Potters.

But that was in the past now. His relationship with Dumbledore was, if not warm then at least professional, forged as it had been through the fires of the last war. Right now, he needed to stay in the present, no matter how much Regulus Black’s little conspiracy threatened to tear open old wounds. Thankfully, the conspirators had wisely concealed Snape’s involvement from Sirius Black, but when that inevitably changed, Snape had made it clear that he would defend himself if attacked by his would-be murderer.

Slowly and stiffly, Snape made his way over to a nearby cabinet where he stored his usual remedies for the occasional wolf-fear nightmare. He eyed the two bottles cautiously. One was a vial of Dreamless Sleep. The other was a bottle of Firewhiskey. He considered them carefully, for later that day he would be entering the mind of Bellatrix Lestrange, and he would need all his mental strength. With a resigned sigh, Severus Snape reached for the Firewhiskey.

****_18 December 1993_  
Hogsmeade  
10:00 a.m. 

While known for his austerity in most personal affairs, Rufus Scrimgeour had one well-known weakness of character: an affinity for fine chocolates. Today, that predilection led him to the famous Honeydukes candy shop in Hogsmeade. Officially, he and a half-dozen faculty members, were here to provide additional security for today’s Hogsmeade weekend, even though only a fraction of the normal swarm of students were in town. Sadly, despite the best efforts of Scrimgeour and young Marcus Flint, only a handful of students could cast a Patronus strong enough to win permission to attend this Hogsmeade weekend.

Scrimgeour had just placed an order for a dozen chocolate-raspberry truffles when he paused and quickly looked around the room. A door leading downstairs to the storeroom was open now when it had not been before, yet there was no one nearby who had just passed through. With a glance, he counted the people in the store and then closed his eyes to listen. After a moment, he heard the sound of the bell that rang when the shop door opened, and he looked that way, noting with quiet satisfaction that the door seemed to stick for a moment before finally closing. The former Auror smiled rather smugly as he paid for his chocolates.

Ten minutes later, the door to one of the private rooms in the Three Broomsticks opened on its own. The person who wasn’t there paused for a few seconds before cautiously and quietly entering the room. Suddenly, an arm appeared from nowhere with a wand in its hand.

“ ** _EXPELLIARMUS!_** ” exclaimed Harry Potter. The flash of his spell sped across the room only to be parried by Moody who suddenly appeared out of nowhere as his Disillusionment spell ended.

“ ** _ACCIO INVISIBILITY CLOAK!_** ” Moody cast in response, but the cloak that Harry wore didn’t respond to the Summoning Charm. Moody cursed under his breath and then jumped to one side to evade Harry’s second disarming hex before taking him down with an overpowered Stunner. When Harry was revived a few minutes later, Moody had already removed the cloak from his body and was examining it.

“Impressive. The cloak that is, not you. You’re still telegraphing your dodge direction even though I’ve told you about that repeatedly. So you somehow conned Wonder Boy into letting you borrow James’s cloak?”

Harry sighed as he pulled himself up off the Floor. “No con jobs this time. He just let me borrow it. We _are_ brothers, you know.”

Moody snorted. “Yeah, and I also know how much affection there was between you two this time last year. How did you see through my Disillusionment?”

“I didn’t,” Harry answered. “I just aimed at the most boring surface in the room. I know it’s hard to maintain Disillusionment while casting a spell. And even harder when you’re trying to blend in with a complex background.”

“Heh. Not bad. Seven out of ten.”

“Thanks. So why are you so interested in the family cloak?”

“Well one, I was just surprised you had it. And two, I was even more surprised that the rumors were true and it couldn’t be summoned. You blew an opening there, by the way. When I was wasting time trying to summon it off you, I was completely open to a Stunner or whatever else you wanted to try.”

“Unfortunately,” said Harry somewhat wistfully, “I didn’t know it was immune to summoning either. One of many conversations my father and I never had.”

“Don’t get maudlin, Potter. The poor deprived delinquent act will never get you anywhere with me.”

Harry chuckled. “Noted. And since I can’t guarantee when I’ll get the Potter Cloak again, when can I learn the Disillusionment Charm?”

Moody looked up at the ceiling as he considered the question. “Around Easter, I think. There are some preliminary stealth charms I want you to learn first that will make full-scale Disillusionment easier.” He tossed the cloak onto the bed before focusing his attention on the boy.

“Well, you’re here now. You still sure you want to do this? We could always spend the day working on other more practical things.”

“No. I understand that you think I’m too young ... but I need to see it. I need to see ... him.”

Moody nodded. “So did you bring it?”

Harry reached into his pocket to produce his shrunken Pensieve. Moody took it, expanded it, and set it on a nearby table. Then, he gestured with his wand and conjured a large bucket off to one side.

“What’s that for?” Harry asked in confusion.

“Vomit, Potter,” Moody said flatly. “You’re about to watch a lot of people die horribly. If you _don’t_ get sick at least once, I will _really_ start to wonder about your character and upbringing.”

Harry swallowed and walked up to the Pensieve as Moody poured the first vial of memories inside. Then, he paused and looked up at the grizzled veteran.

“By the way, can _you_ see through the Potter cloak with that eye of yours?”

Moody snorted.

“ _Pfft_. Like I would actually tell you if I could.”

**_12 Grimmauld Place  
1:00 p.m._ **

“I still can’t see why you don’t want me to come along,” Sirius said petulantly. “I am a part of your little Horcrux-hunting conspiracy, aren’t I?”

Regulus frowned while pulling on his coat. “Yes, a sickly, near-invalid part. Also an annoying one. Anyway, all we’re doing today is standing guard while the Legilimens we hired tries to read the mind of dear cousin Bellatrix. There’s no need for you to be there for that. Besides, the Legilimens is very particular about his identity and doesn’t want anyone else to learn it. And if you did come along, you’d probably make a bunch of bad jokes and get on everyone’s nerves.”

“Hey!” the older brother exclaimed. “I can be serious when I need to be.” Then, he smirked. “Hell, I’ve been doing it my whole life!”

“ _Exactly_. Honestly, I can’t imagine why so many people find your refined sense of humor to be puerile and childish. And anyway, Harry will be by for a visit tomorrow. Don’t you want to be well-rested for him?”

Sirius narrowed his eyes.  “Now you’re just trying to divert me for some reason.”

“Stop being so paranoid, Sirius. It’s unbecoming.” With that, Regulus threw a pinch of powder into the newly reactivated Floo. “Longbottom Manor!” he said after stepping into the green flames. Behind him, Sirius glared at the Floo with a disgruntled expression.

Seconds later, Regulus stepped out of the fireplace in the Longbottom parlor. Augusta and Lucius were waiting for him while Snape sat in a chair on the far side of the room, apparently in meditation.

Regulus nodded at his co-conspirators. “So, are we ready to do this?”

“No,” said Snape from across the room. “But I doubt I shall be better prepared anytime soon, so we’d best be about it.”

With that, the Potions Master rose and made his way out of the parlor towards the secret dungeon where their prisoners were housed, the other three following behind. A few rooms away, Lady Augusta carefully adjusted a particular wall sconce causing a seamless segment of the nearby wall to move aside, revealing a hidden door that led to the dungeon below. Moments later, the four had passed by three cells each containing an unconscious man under the effects of Draught of Living Death. From the last cell, “ _Tip Toe Through the Tulips_ ” could be faintly heard. The fourth cell contained a female: Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord’s most trusted assassin. Silently, Lucius and Regulus pulled the unconscious woman into a sitting position before conjuring a straitjacket around her. Then, Lucius produced a vial of the Living Death antidote and poured it down her throat. Seconds later, her eyes fluttered open, and the first face she saw was that of Severus Snape who had conjured a chair and sat down across from her.

“Snape!” she hissed angrily. But before she could say anything else, Regulus hit her with a Petrification Curse and she was frozen into place, her eyes wide. Regulus and Lucius both stepped out of the room as Snape leaned forward, his eyes locked onto those of the prisoner.

“ ** _LEGILIMENS_** ,” he said softly, and the interrogation began.

**_The Fifth Memory_ **

Harry licked his lips nervously. He had not gotten sick yet, but he suspected that was just because Moody had started with the memories of the four people who’d fought Voldemort long enough to escape. Even then, the violence had been quite upsetting. All four had featured Aurors and Hit Wizards who Voldemort had targeted personally because they had arrested or killed prominent Death Eaters. And while they all escaped their duels with Voldemort, none of them did so without taking significant (and in a few cases, permanent) damage. Apparently, the Dark Lord’s goal was to demoralize the enemy by making them pay a high price for their opposition. But now, the two were about to start on the fifth memory – the last stand of Auror Herbert Burke Jr. during the Battle of Diagon Alley in April of 1976 – a conflict which Harry already knew would end with Burke’s courageous self-sacrifice that bought time for his fellow Aurors and many civilians to escape with their lives. Suddenly, Harry frowned and turned to Moody, who had accompanied him into the memories.

“Bones, Fawley, Shacklebolt, Abbot, and now Burke,” Harry said referring to the family names of the men and women featured in the first five memories. “They’re all Pureblood families, aren’t they? Four of them are in the Sacred Twenty-Eight, I think, and the fifth one probably should have been.”

“Correct,” Moody said. “Do you draw any conclusions from that?”

Harry considered. “One possibility, I guess, is that he took a special interest in killing people he considered blood traitors,” he said slowly.

Moody nodded. “Any other possibilities spring to mind?”

Harry looked up at the ex-Auror thoughtfully. “That despite his apparent Pureblood sympathies, Voldemort actually was happy to take out Purebloods on both sides of the war?”

Moody returned Harry’s gaze. “An interesting theory, Potter.”

Harry coughed delicately. “I, uh, had a conversation last year with Rufus Scrimgeour. He mentioned you’d advanced some conspiracy theories along those lines.”

“Did he indeed? Well, it’s true. By the end of the war, I was convinced that Death Eater murder victims fell into two categories. The ones where he just let his more psychotic followers go wild in order to terrify the populace. And the ones that were performed with exacting precision. The latter group _always_ targeted Purebloods and usually targeted members of Wizengamot families, including some families that were considered Grey, and a few that quietly supported blood purism but weren’t openly supportive enough to satisfy Voldie.”

Harry absorbed that before turning his attention back to the frozen memory before him. It was in April of 1976 just a few hours after sunset, and the full moon hung low over Diagon Alley. Herbert Burke, Jr. – the white sheep of the Burke family – had been on patrol with five other Aurors when a pack of already-transformed werewolves led by Fenrir Greyback were Portkeyed into the Alley near its southern entryway. There were only about eight werewolves, but it would be enough to terrorize the Wizarding government into believing that the Dark Lord had some sort of control over the creatures, thus leading to several major amendments to the Werewolf Registration Act a year later. Greyback’s pack killed twenty-seven people and infected a dozen survivors in just the first three minutes of the attack before Aurors showed up. Thankfully, Moody had started the memory with Burke’s arrival on the scene, so Harry had been spared the sight of those savage killings.

Immediately, Burke took advantage of the fact that the transformed werewolves were nearly mindless. He had most of his Aurors cast protective shields down the sides of the street while he and a few others transfigured barrels into what appeared to be small children. Funneled by the shields straight down the street, the werewolves soon set upon the “children” and began tearing them to bits, a sight which triggered a queasy rumbling in Harry’s stomach even though he knew they were fake. The true nature of Burke’s trap was revealed when the Aurors ended the transfiguration, and the werewolves suddenly found themselves ripping apart wooden barrels.

Specifically, barrels full of pine resin, pitch, creosote, and other sticky and _highly flammable_ liquids that had been commandeered from a nearby potions supply shop.

A few quick Incendios later, the entire pack was howling in agony as the viscous materials now stuck in their fur were set ablaze. That might well have been the end of Fenrir Greyback had the entire pack not suddenly disappeared with a loud pop. Surprised, Burke and his fellow Aurors looked around the now empty street for other hostiles.

They found only one.

He’d made no sound as he Apparated in, a feat that Harry simply added to the mystery that was Voldemort. The Dark Lord stood in the middle of Diagon Alley, about fifty feet from the Aurors. He wore night black robes that extended all the way to the ground, with a large hood that concealed his face and long heavy sleeves for the arms that were crossed in front of him almost as if he were in prayer. And despite the distance, there was no problem in understanding his voice as he calmly spoke to Burke.

“Your strategy was inspired, Auror Burke. You are as cunning as any Slytherin.  Are you sure you will not rethink your rejection of my offer to....”

“ ** _BOMBARDA MAXIMA!_** ” Burke cried out before Voldemort could even finish his invitation to change sides. A massive explosion at least twenty feet across lit up the Alley where the Dark Lord had been standing. But seconds later, the smoke and fire cleared to reveal Voldemort standing unharmed, his wand out casually to the side, and his hood thrown back to reveal the inhuman serpentine face that would haunt Harry’s nightmares.

“ _A wordless Protego strong enough to block a Bombarda Maxima!_ ” Harry realized with shock. And then he noticed something even more disturbing, for the Dark Lord was actually _smiling_ as if pleased with Burke’s resistance.

“As you wish, Auror Burke. **_AVADA KEDAVRA!_** ” And again, Harry marveled. He’d seen Voldemort’s Killing Curse in the previous memories, but never as fast as here. From his lessons with Moody, he’d learned many details about the Unforgiveable. Though deceptively simple in both incantation and wand movement, it was actually very precise in how the two needed to fit together. The curse also required considerable personal power compared to most spells (to say nothing of its esoteric requirement of hating someone enough to trigger homicidal rage in the first place). It was an experienced user who could cast the Killing Curse in less than two seconds, and an exceptionally powerful user who could cast it _again_ in less than a minute without growing weak from the strain. Voldemort could do it in less than one second and then recast it easily after only a few seconds of recovery time.

Despite the Dark Lord’s speed, Burke was able to narrowly evade the initial attack by feinting right and then flinging himself to the left. Immediately, the other five Aurors opened up on the Dark Lord with their deadliest legal curses, and Harry recalled that this battle took place before the Auror Corps was permitted to use Unforgiveables. Indeed, this battle was in large part _why_ the Auror Corps would be permitted to use Unforgiveables. For while all of the Aurors’ spells struck home, none of them could penetrate Voldemort’s shield. Finally, as if bored by the proceedings, Voldemort pointed his wand straight up and _hissed._ Harry paled and struggled to keep emotion from his face, for he had no desire to let his teacher know he was a Parselmouth and thus knew exactly what spell Voldemort was using: _Serpensortia Horribilis_ augmented by the power of Parselmagic.

There was a brief sickly green light that flashed across the night sky, illuminating the darkened alley in its emerald glow. And then, _it rained cobras._ Dozens, even scores of the deadly venomous serpents fell down onto the street and instantly went on the offensive at their master’s hissed commands. Horrified, Auror Burke cried out instructions to his fellow Aurors who were desperately trying to defend themselves against the serpentine horde.

“EVACUATE THE CIVILIANS! I’LL HOLD HIM OFF!”

And as he cried out those orders, the Auror ran towards the patch of still-flaming liquids in the center of the street ... and then jumped _into_ it. Stabbing his wand into the very heart of the flames even as his own robes began to catch fire, Burke gave a mighty roar before raising his wand up and thrusting it towards Voldemort. In response, all the flaming liquid on the street rose up and blasted towards the enemy even as Burke cried out an incantation. “ ** _ENGORGIO MAXIMUM!_** ” Instantly, the liquid, which by this point was essentially wizarding napalm, doubled and then quadrupled in volume.

Voldemort didn’t even flinch. He simply stood his ground until the fire was almost upon him before thrusting his wand into the vanguard of the flames at the last possible second. And instantly, the _entire mass_ of napalm, consisting of thousands of gallons of burning liquid, simply turned to water ... and then to _ice_ , leaving a gargantuan frozen crystalline structure suspended in mid-air above Diagon Alley as much in defiance of gravity as of all the established laws of Transfiguration.

“… _impossible_ ,” the now-exhausted Burke said weakly, oblivious to the popping sounds of his fellow Aurors fleeing, carrying with them every civilian incapable of Apparition. Those would be his last coherent words, as at that moment a cobra bit into his calf. He fell to the ground screaming in agony, and at Voldemort’s hissed commands, a quartet of cobras each grabbed one of his limbs to hold him immobile.

“Does it hurt much, Auror Burke? The bite of a cobra?” Voldemort said as he casually moved towards the fallen man. “Permit me to give you some perspective on the matter. **_CRUCIO!_** ”

At that, Harry had to look away from the sight of the doomed man as he screamed and writhed on the ground. Sickeningly, he realized that the hissing sounds made by the four cobras binding him were, to his ears, the sounds of laughter not unlike that of Nidhogg when he was particularly amused by another’s cruelty.

“Your heroism does you credit, Auror Burke. Were you a Gryffindor? A Hufflepuff? No matter. Sadly, such heroism is only a path to martyrdom, a path only fools take. But at least your suffering will be brief.”

Voldemort knelt at the side of poor Burke who was still moaning incoherently, and he placed his wand just a few inches above the man’s head. Then, as if to show his contempt by drawing out the proceedings, Voldemort cast the Killing Curse once more, only this time with a deliberate and exaggerated slowness. There was a flash of light, and Herbert Burke Jr. went still and silent. Then, Voldemort rose and regarded the scene.  That whole area was a veritable sea of deadly snakes, but there were six people still alive, though the cobra bites they’d already suffered meant they wouldn’t last for much longer. Still, it was apparently too long for Voldemort’s taste. Five blindingly fast Killing Curse’s later, there was only one left, a female Auror who’d only taken a few snake bites before casting a shield over herself but who was too weak to apparate away. Voldemort glided towards her, dismissing the army of snakes with one swipe of his wand and shattering her shield with a second. Weakly, she raised her wand in Voldemort’s direction, but a third wordless gesture sent it flying.

He pointed his wand at the woman’s center-mass and she closed her eyes while waiting to die. But to Harry’s surprise, Voldemort instead cast a healing charm designed to neutralize snake venom. Her pain diminishing, the Auror opened her eyes in surprise and looked up at the Dark Lord, confused by his apparent mercy.

“You will live, woman, at least for now. There should be a witness to testify as to Herbert Burke’s heroism ... and to how futile and pointless it was against my power. I have selected you to be that witness.” He tilted his head slightly, and the corners of his lips rose sardonically.  “Sadly, having witnessed firsthand the power of Lord Voldemort, I fear any future sights would only pale in comparison. And so, I shall free you from the burden of such disappointment.”

Then, Voldemort hissed out a word that Harry didn’t recognize, and the woman screamed in agony as her eyes swelled in their sockets before _exploding out of them_. And with that, Harry had finally reached his limit. He staggered back and put his hand over his mouth. Swiftly, Moody grabbed his other arm and guided him out of the memory with the high-pitched laughter of the Dark Lord echoing behind them. The boy barely made it to the bucket in time.

After a few minutes of vomiting (and a few tears to his embarrassment), Harry got hold of himself. Moody handed him a wet towel and a glass of water and then directed him to a chair.

“Do you need a Calming Draught?” he asked softly.

“No ... maybe. Just give me a second.” Harry rubbed the wet towel over his face, as much to wipe away the tears as to clean off the sick.  Intellectually, he knew that it was important to allow himself to feel emotions even at times like this, but that did not make the _desire_ to block them out recede.

“The woman, the auror he allowed to live....”

“Nancy Kent. Half-blood. Gryffindor Class of ‘74. Just a year out of the Academy when this happened. The Healers concluded that the bastard hit her with the Conjunctivitis Curse augmented by Parseltongue.” Moody paused diplomatically. “You begin to understand, I hope, why so much of Wizarding Britain has an almost hysterical fear of Parseltongue now?”

Harry nodded without looking up.

“Anyway, the inclusion of Parseltongue made the curse impossible to reverse with any magic the healers knew. Kent was rendered completely and permanently blind. She was able to give a Pensieve memory of the attack – as Voldie _intended_ – but she never recovered from the trauma. She took her own life in November of 1981, ironically the day after hearing that Voldemort had been destroyed by your brother.”

“So,” Moody continued, “what have we learned so far?”

Harry sniffed and shook his head as he tried to absorb everything he’d seen.  “That Voldemort is _insanely_ powerful and can’t be beat in a duel unless you’re Albus Dumbledore?”

Moody practically growled at that. “Have I been wasting my time with you, Potter? I told you before that I wasn’t training you to beat Voldie but to _survive_ him. If you haven’t been paying attention to those lessons, we might as well have spent the last few hours working on prep for your OWLs. Now again, what have you learned that’s relevant to the topic of _survival_?”

Harry wiped his face again. Then, he closed his eyes and thought – _really_ thought – about the memories he’d been shown. Suddenly, he opened his eyes almost in surprise.

“Feint in one direction and then dodge to the other,” he said with authority. “That’s what all the people so far who survived Voldemort’s first Killing Curse did.”

“Close, Potter. Eight out of ten. But I can show you scores of memories in which victims tried that unsuccessfully. You’ve seen how fast Voldie is. You must realize how hard it is to just dodge him like that. The _real_ secret is to feint in one direction and _keep it up until he commits to his spell_.  And since he’s so fast, it’s _really hard_ to do that and still reverse direction in time to dodge the curse.”

Harry thought about that. “I also noticed that four of the five we’ve seen so far moved right and then dodged left. Is that significant?”

Moody actually gave what for him was a smile. “Getting better, Potter. Nine out of ten that time. Voldemort’s right-handed. His technique with the Killing Curse is immaculate, and if the target is stationary, he generally hits center-mass perfectly, usually right through the breastbone. But if the target is moving to his right, he will naturally try to lead with his shot. An analysis of victims he killed while they were on the move showed that he struck off-center to the right about 60% of the time, so moving right-then-left should logically allow you to dodge at that rate if you can time it right.”

“That’s ... not great odds,” Harry said dubiously.

Moody shrugged. “We’re talking about going up against the deadliest dark wizard in living memory. You take what advantages you can get.”

Harry considered that, and suddenly, his face adopted a rueful expression, as if he regretted what he was about to ask.

“Mr. Moody, what do you know about ... Wu Xi Do?”

Moody seemed nonplussed. “... apparently nothing.  Tell me more.”

**_Meanwhile, in the mind of a madwoman ..._ **

The few hours of Snape’s intrusion were surprisingly straightforward. Naturally, he was unable to penetrate directly into the core of Bellatrix Lestrange’s self which was encased in a minefield of psychic traps and shields. But while the number and scope of those traps and shields were excessive, he had thus far not found any which were beyond his experience and knowledge. Snape did not know whether to be relieved, disappointed, or concerned – he had expected something more exotic in one of Augustus Rookwood’s _personal projects_ than he’d encountered so far. About twenty minutes later, the Legilimens had finally disarmed the last of the exterior defenses that barred his way before projecting his mind deeper into that of his subject.

The feeling of weightlessness and ethereality that accompanied entry-level Legilimency fell away, and Snape became aware of the sensation of having a body again even though he knew that such sensations were illusory. He closed his (illusory) eyes for a moment and allowed his other (illusory) senses to come to the fore. Satisfied that there were no cognitohazards nearby, Snape opened his eyes, looked around ... and blinked in surprise.

“ _Well_ ,” he thought to himself, “ _I suppose that counts as ... exotic_.”

The fact that Snape was nude was not particularly surprising under the circumstances, and with a casual thought, he altered his psychic avatar to include his customary black robes. He stood on a gravel path that cut through a snow-covered field, which was not the starting point that Snape had expected for this journey, but neither was outside the range of his expectations. But what _did_ stand out as highly unusual was where the journey seemed to lead. For up ahead on the path was not some kind of dwelling as he’d expected but rather what appeared to be a truly massive wall of boxwood trees that reached up fifty feet or more into the sky and off in either horizontal direction as far as the eye could see. The trees were interconnected with thick brambles, nettles, thorn bushes, and other hedge plants that made the wall seem impenetrable. The pathway led right up to the edge of the wall before terminating in front of what looked like two identical passageways cut through the hedge.

Rather more troubling, Snape thought, was that the two passageways were guarded by two gigantic trolls each armed with double-bladed axes that were longer than he was tall. The situation did not improve when Snape drew closer and realized that the trolls looked like misshapen imitations of Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange. Snape approached cautiously but confidently. A psychic representation of a troll was likely a powerful defense, but in this context, he could use Sectumsempra or even the Killing Curse as a manifestation of his own will, thus evening the odds. But presently, neither troll seemed intent on attacking. Snape drew nearer, and when he was within fifteen feet of the two passageways, a high shrieking voice called out from everywhere and nowhere.

“ _Ahahahahaha! Itsy-bitsy Sevie-poo thinks he can walk willy-nilly into my mind, does he?_ ” cackled the mad voice of Bellatrix Lestrange, who truly had been driven insane by her Azkaban experiences. “ _Well, Sevie-poo, let’s see if you’re as clever as you think you are. My Roddy and Rabby guard the ingress and will kill you if you choose the wrong door. You may ask a question of one of my boys. One will answer true and the other false. Or you could just let them kill you now if your wits aren’t up to my little challenge. Ahahahaha!_ ”

Snape’s lip curled up in contempt. It was a child’s riddle he’d solved at the age of nine. The correct solution was simply to ask either of the guardians which doorway _the other_ would identify as the safe path. The nature of the scenario ensured that the guardian asked would always choose the _unsafe_ path, as either the true guardian would repeat the false guardian’s untruth or the false guardian would lie about the true guardian’s correct response. The true safe path would then be whichever one _wasn’t_ chosen. If Snape had still been a child, he would have been proud of solving the puzzle. But seven years in Slytherin followed by another fifteen as a spy had taught him to look past obvious solutions no matter how clever. In this case, his experience immediately led him to notice the non-obvious question: _Why would anyone other than an idiot provide a clue for how to penetrate their own defenses?_

With that realization, Snape ignored both the doors and the trolls who guarded them and expanded his legilimency senses. Then, he calmly marched right up to the space on the wall _between_ the two doors and then straight _into_ the wall. As anticipated, the sharp thorns and nettles fell back at his approach, for he had noticed that the plants in that patch of wall were Nervous Nettles, a breed often incorporated into magical hedge mazes specifically to conceal hidden passages because they would only withdraw from someone who intentionally went straight for them. And sure enough, there was indeed a hidden third passageway which he entered without incident.

Snape hoped the rest of the traps and diversions ahead could be so easily circumvented, but somehow, he doubted it. The passageway he’d entered was narrow, and while it cleared a path for him, he had to move slowly and carefully, for he soon realized that after a few feet into the passage, the Nervous Nettles were quickly overgrown by other, more dangerous stinging plants, some of which he did not recognize.

“ _Assuming they’re even real plants incorporated from Bellatrix’s memories,_ ” he thought ruefully. “ _And not fantasy plants concocted out of her nightmares.”_

Sure enough, just as that cheery thought passed through Snape’s head, he moved just a bit too fast and caught his hand on a long sharp thorn. He hissed in pain and then froze, as he heard a man’s angry yell from somewhere nearby followed by a woman’s scream of terror. He wondered if it was one of Bellatrix’s memories before his face went pale. It was not Bellatrix’s memory that had been summoned but his own. The poison in the thorn was causing him to remember one of his parents’ many arguments. Specifically, one from his early childhood that ended with his mother in hospital with a fractured jaw.

He closed his eyes and concentrated both on the pain from his hand and the pain from the memory. Carefully, he examined the psychic connection between the two before gently severing it. The voices faded away, but Snape was unnerved by how easily the psychic poison bypassed his defenses. He would have to be even more cautious now, as sustained injuries might incapacitate him or worse despite his psychic skills.

After about twenty feet, the passageway abruptly forked, and when his legilimency senses provided no guidance, he simply went to the right. When the path forked again, he turned once more only to quickly find a dead end. Snape grimaced in frustration. Apparently, this mental defense manifested as a maze of dangerous psychic plants, a fact brought home when he was caught by another poisonous nettle while trying to backtrack. This time, the induced memory was of when he received his Hogwarts letter at age eleven … and of the beating he took from Tobias Snape afterwards. Even more troubling was the fact that the pain of the memory-beating lingered on Snape’s psychic avatar even after he’d neutralized the attack. He wondered if the nature of this defense could cause actual _physical_ harm to his body.

Then, Snape froze in place at a sudden horrible realization before closing his eyes to assess the seriousness of his mistake. For what he had suddenly realized was that in his zeal to defend himself from the psychic hazards in the maze bushes, he had committed an elementary dunderheaded mistake, one he should have been on guard for, and one which might yet prove fatal.

He had treated the maze as if it _truly_ were an actual maze instead of a mental construct, thereby submitting himself to the reality imposed by what was, in truth, nothing but a hostile idea.

Unfortunately, that mistake, once committed, was nearly unalterable. At this point, he was into Lestrange’s mindscape too deep to even try imposing his own will upon it. He had only two options now. He could reject this false reality and withdraw completely knowing that the Death Eater’s psychic defences would only grow stronger. For it is the nature of such defences to study their intruders as much as the intruders study them. Or he could press on knowing that the ideas he would encounter would be far more real and deadly than anything he’d seen thus far.

**_Meanwhile in reality …_ **

Lucius pulled out a gold pocket watch to check it. “He’s been in there for longer than the first two times.”

“Yes,” answered Regulus quietly. “He expected as much given the nature of defences he’d anticipating her having.”

“Still, are we to wait here all day? Draco will be returning from Durmstrang tomorrow. I still have preparations to make.”

Regulus sniffed. “I thought that’s what you kept house elves for, even if you sold one of them to Harry Potter. As for Severus, this will take as long as it takes. We have no way to contact him about his progress that would not be a distraction to him, perhaps a fatal one. So, we wait. As for your homecoming fete, Augusta will be back from her errands in a few hours. She can take over your watch if you want.”

Lucius considered that. “No, no. Severus and I go back too far for me to leave him to his fate now. I will stay here to make sure he remains undisturbed.”

Regulus nodded at that, oblivious to the nature of the disturbance that had just arrived via the parlor Floo. For as the green flames died down, the new arrival brushed the soot from his shoulders and then cautiously looked around, at once both pleased but also somewhat put-out that no one had responded to his presence.

Sirius Black did so love to make an entrance.

**_Next: Harry sees another side of James Potter and learns why Voldemort feared Albus Dumbledore, while Sirius sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong, and Snape travels farther into the heart of Bellatrix’s darkness._ **

****_AN 1: Update Schedule_  
11/28 (today) – Ch 108 of POS.  
12/5 – Next chapter of Strangers In Boston, available to Patrons through TheSinisterMan(dot)Com  
12/9(ish) – Ch 109 of POS, available to Discord followers through TheSinisterMan(dot)Com  
12/12 – Ch 109 of POS, here and at AO3.

**_AN 2: Thanks again to my awesome editors at the Discord POS-Editorial chat:_ ** **_Aich, patronus, Imperialanrudh, FeatheryMinx, Black Stag, and the indefatigable Ozzie._ **

**_AN 3: And thanks also to my awesome followers, as we have broken the 10k Reviews barrier and are approaching 10k Favorites and 11k Followers!_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Harry sees another side of James Potter and learns why Voldemort feared Albus Dumbledore, while Sirius sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong, and Snape travels farther into the heart of Bellatrix’s darkness.
> 
> AN 1: Update Schedule  
> 11/28 (today) – Ch 108 of POS.  
> 12/5 – Next chapter of Strangers In Boston, available to Patrons through TheSinisterMan(dot)Com  
> 12/9(ish) – Ch 109 of POS, available to Discord followers through TheSinisterMan(dot)Com  
> 12/12 – Ch 109 of POS, here and at AO3.
> 
> AN 2: Thanks again to my awesome editors at the Discord POS-Editorial chat: Aich, patronus, Imperialanrudh, FeatheryMinx, Black Stag, and the indefatigable Ozzie.
> 
> AN 3: And thanks also to my awesome followers, as we have broken the 10k Reviews barrier and are approaching 10k Favorites and 11k Followers!


	27. Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (pt 2)

**_HARRY POTTER  
AND THE DEATH EATER MENACE_ **

**_Harry Potter and all associate characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership._ **

**_CHAPTER 26: Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (pt 2)_ **

****_18 December 1993  
The Three Broomsticks  
2:30 p.m._

After viewing the memory of the Battle of Diagon Alley, Harry Potter found the subsequent memories to be far less wrenching. Indeed, they were almost anticlimactic outside of the morbid aspect of watching several good people be murdered. When Harry asked about it, Moody admitted that he wanted to get the most violent and disturbing memory out of the way first. The Burke memory was the one with the most collateral damage and more importantly the only one with such atrocities as a rain of cobras or exploding eyeballs. The next few memories mainly featured Voldemort rather causally striking people down with a second or third Killing Curse after the victims had been lucky enough to dodge the first one or two. Harry noted that Moody’s statistics seemed to hold true – feinting right and then dodging left worked slightly more often than other tactics, if only for a few seconds. Compared to Burke, none of the duelists in those other memories came close to even inconveniencing Voldemort, though several, by their sacrifices, allowed others to escape the Dark Lord’s wrath.

At around 2:30, Moody called for a break. The last memory he’d planned to show that day would be the duel between Voldemort and James Potter which (luckily for Harry’s father) quickly turned into a duel between Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore, the only person to have decisively beaten Voldemort one-on-one. But extended Pensieve review was mentally draining, and Moody wanted Harry to be clear-headed for this last duel, so he told Harry to nip down invisibly to the loo on the first floor and freshen up while he picked up a couple of sandwiches from Madam Rosmerta.

Once downstairs, Harry was careful to avoid bumping into the few customers around, but he was surprised to see Minister Fudge sharing a table with Profs. McGonagall, Flitwick and Hagrid, and they soon invited Rosmerta to join them. Curious, Harry crept closer to listen in on the conversation which was initially about how the Dementors were negatively affecting the local economy before veering off into lurid discussions about the Azkaban escape and the many supposed sins of “the traitor Sirius Black,” who Fudge seemed to think was by far the most dangerous of the escapees.

_“Obviously, Black was tired of his double-agent role,” the Minister said. “He was ready to declare his support openly for You-Know-Who, and he seems to have planned to become the Potters’ Secret Keeper just to help bring about their deaths. But as we all know, You-Know-Who met his downfall in little Jim Potter. Powers gone, horribly weakened, he fled. And this left Black in a very nasty position indeed. His master fallen at the very moment when he, Black, had shown his true colors as a traitor.  He had no choice but to run for it.” [AN 2]_

Harry rolled his invisible eyes, annoyed at the Minister’s credulity. Of course, in Fudge’s defense, Sirius Black had obligingly given a very thorough confession at his trial. The boy frowned. He’d read over the trial transcript several times, and they certainly seemed convincing to him. But there was still _something_ there. Something he was missing. Harry shook his head. It would come to him, he was sure of it. Across the room, Moody had just collected his late lunch and was heading back up the stairs to his room.

_“But what do you think Black and the other escaped Death Eaters have broken out to do?” said Madam Rosmerta. “Good gracious, Minister, they aren’t trying to rejoin You-Know-Who, are they?”_

_“I dare say that is the eventual plan,” said Fudge evasively. “But we hope to catch Black and the others long before that. I must say, You-Know-Who alone and friendless is one thing …  but give him back his most devoted servants, and I shudder to think how quickly he’ll rise again ….” [AN 2]_

Having heard enough, Harry made his way to the loo, his thoughts turning rapidly. While he appreciated the memories and insights that Alastor Moody was providing, the boy suddenly wanted to return to his room and study the Black trial transcript once more in hopes that the answers would reveal themselves. When those revelations finally came later that evening, even Harry would be surprised by their source.

**_The Longbottom Dungeons  
3:30 p.m._ **

“How can we get him out of there?” Lucius Malfoy asked with a deceptive calm that only barely masked his mounting alarm.

“ _We_ can’t do anything of the sort, Lucius,” Regulus said with resignation, though he was quite alarmed himself. “Only Severus can safely end the Legilimency intrusion. If we do anything to disturb him at this point, who knows how disastrous the consequences might be.”

By this point, Severus Snape had spent hours staring placidly into the eyes of the paralyzed Bellatrix Lestrange. The length of time spent on this venture was not the source of their concern, for the interrogations of Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange had each lasted about as long. However, neither of those two interrogations had resulted in _physical damage_ to the man.

Regulus had been the first to notice the small red scratch that spontaneously appeared on Snape’s left hand. A few moments later, another scratch appeared on his right cheek – and a second later, his head jerked about as if he’d been struck repeatedly before shifting back to meet Bellatrix’s helpless gaze as if nothing had happened. But while there was no visible source of the blows to the Legilimens’ head, their aftereffects were obvious. Within a few seconds, Snape had a black eye, and his nose had seemingly broken itself with an audible crack.

Concerned that Snape’s real-world injuries might also compromise his safety within Bellatrix’s mind, Reg cautiously applied some basic healing Charms that he thought (hoped!) would not cause a distraction to the man’s psychic avatar.

“Did you know that Legilimency could do this?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“No,” Lucius answered curtly. “And I fear, neither did Severus.”

**_Inside the mind of Bellatrix Lestrange_ **

Severus snarled angrily as another thorn clipped his ear, and in response, he suffered another sudden and painful flashback. It was Autumn Term of his Second Year, and a group of Fourth Year Slytherins had mastered the Stinging Hex and thought it might be amusing to practice it on the greasy impoverished Half-blood who wore rags under his robes and was friends with a particularly uppity Mudblood. Of course, it had only taken him two hours over a potion cauldron followed by discreet access to their dorm room to disabuse them of the idea that they should ever use Severus Snape for such sport again. Indeed, he’d heard that one of them still had problems with persistent bed-wetting to this very day.

Unfortunately, the fact that he’d swiftly avenged himself for that unpleasant afternoon of Slytherin hazing did not eliminate the _painful memories_ of it, memories the psychic thorns could reawaken with just a scratch. He suddenly felt oddly grateful that those wretched Marauders, while cruel in their humor, generally preferred embarrassing jinxes over curses that could draw blood or break bone. At the time, he’d considered public embarrassment at the hands of Potter and Black to be worse than all but the bloodiest of curses, but in his current environment, the memory of being debagged in the Hogwarts courtyard in front of dozens of jeering classmates was far less dangerous than his recollections of being challenged by aspiring Death Eaters from his own house. And that wasn’t even the worst problem – the memory attacks seemed to progress through Snape’s life in chronological order, and at the rate of progression, it would not be long before he was experiencing flashbacks to Death Eater combat training and, worse, exposure to the Dark Lord’s Cruciatus Curse. And if Snape was forced to sense-memory a Crucio or two (or ten!) while trapped inside Bellatrix’s mind, it could be disastrous if not fatal. (“ _Always assuming a flashback to That Night in the Shrieking Shack doesn’t do me in first_ , _”_ he thought ruefully _._ ) But given how narrow the path through the maze was relative to his size, further injuries seemed inevitable.

Snape furrowed his brow in thought. Presently, he had no power to affect the psychic integrity of the maze and very little power to protect himself against the maze. But he _could_ make changes to his own psychic avatar so long as they could fit within the established rules of this mental landscape which, at the moment, was meant to emulate a naturalistic environment. Like most Hogwarts students, Severus had been duly impressed on his first day of Transfiguration when Minerva McGonagall demonstrated her Animagus form, so much so that he’d briefly investigated the process for acquiring such a form himself. He’d abandoned the inquiry after learning about the Conscription List, but he had not forgotten the results of that brief foray and the insights about his own nature that he’d gained.

There was a reason, after all, why he rarely took offense when the Marauders and his other school rivals sought to insult him by referring to him as “ _The Dungeon Bat_.”

Snape crouched and jumped forward, focusing his powerful mind on his own personal self-image as he did. Instantly, his robes flowed like black oil in the air before shrinking and thickening into small yet powerful wings, and with a soft shudder of magic, the form of Severus Snape fell away to be replaced by that of a black bat flying effortlessly through the maze and then up over its walls into the night-sky of Bellatrix Lestrange’s mindscape.

As Snape ascended, he marveled briefly over the sensation of flying even if it was only imaginary. He’d always detested broom travel, but _this_ was something different and far better. He also took a moment to thank his lucky stars that he’d come up with this stratagem – from the air, the hedge maze seemed to stretch for miles. Then, Snape was abruptly reminded once again that the hedge maze wasn’t a maze at all when the green trees below him began to turn grey and merge together into a single thick canopy. Seconds later, the grey branches rather unexpectedly sprouted a surprisingly colorful foliage of orange, pink, lime green, and yellow. The brilliant color scheme confused Snape at first until the ‘foliage’ suddenly took to the air as if to swarm in his direction.

Mentally, Snape hissed in anger mixed with fear. What had appeared to be colorful foliage was actually a carefully fabricated memory of a flock of magical birds taking wing. Particularly, a rare species of magical bird indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa that bore the obnoxiously twee name of _Fwooper_. Fwoopers were well-known in the magical world for their brilliant and lovely multicolored plumage.

And also for the fact that extended exposure to their song caused permanent insanity.

In the dungeon cell, Regulus was wiping Snape’s forehead with a damp cloth when the other man suddenly spoke for the first time since the interrogation began.

“ _Fwooooopers!_ ” he whispered harshly before resuming his silent focus on Bellatrix.

Regulus leaned back in surprise, opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked up at Lucius in confusion. Lucius simply shrugged.

“Well, I don’t think _either_ of us was expecting him to say _that_ ,” he quipped.

Suddenly, there was a soft pop as Hoskins, the Longbottom’s house elf appeared bearing a silver tray with more damp towels.

“Your fresh towels, sir. Also, Hoskins regrets to inform youses gentle-wizards, but there has been an unsuspected arrival.”

Reg and Lucius looked at one another sharply. “Who?” Lucius asked.

“Tis Mr. Regulus Black’s brother, sir. The one what was staying upstairs during the summer and leaving dog hairs all over the place.” Hoskins then coughed in embarrassment. “Not that Hoskins minded cleaning up after the visiting dog-man, of course. No, not at all.”

Regulus closed his eyes. “I’ll kill him. I’ll cut off all that long hair he’s so proud of and strangle him with it.”

“Let’s set your unrequited fantasies aside for now,” drawled Lucius. “Hoskins, would you be so good as to … distract Sirius Black so that he does not come down here?”

“But of course, sirs. Hoskins will be subtle and polite but also firm and resolute.” The house elf bowed respectfully and then popped away.

Regulus shook his head in annoyance and went back to wiping the forehead of Severus Snape, who had just begun twitching his left eye somewhat frantically. “Come on, Severus. Get _out_ of there!”

**_Moments later in the Longbottom Parlor_ **

By this point, Sirius Black had spent more than half an hour stuck in the Longbottom Parlor. Though “parlor” was perhaps a poor term for the chamber which was in no sense a feminine room. Indeed, the parlor was home to a surprising number of stuffed animal heads hanging on the walls. As Sirius surveyed the room, he was suddenly reminded that Augusta Longbottom had once held a reputation for game hunting (both magical and muggle). There had been a story from his school days that she’d even fashioned a hat out of a stuffed vulture, but he was sure that was all nonsense. Well, pretty sure.

He’d just checked the door for the fifth time to make sure it was still locked (and resistant to Alohomoras) when Hoskins popped back into the room, causing Sirius to utter a startled “ _Eek!_ ” Next to the diminutive creature stood a rolling cart with a large covered tray on it.

“Hoskins does beg your esteemed pardon, Good Lord Black, sir. But Lord Black’s younger brother wishes Hoskins to convey that he will be along to see you momentarily except that he is in what he describes as _a delicate juncture_ at this time. In the meantime, Hoskins hopes that Lord Black will indulge in a brief repast while he waits.”

With a flourish, Hoskins pulled the lid off the tray to reveal a full English tea service with a large plate of watercress sandwiches and an even larger plate of sugar cookies.

“Well … um, thanks, er, Hoskins,” Sirius answered somewhat lamely. “But if it’s all the same, I’d like to go join my brother. I promise I won’t do anything to disrupt Reg’s …  delicate juncture.”

Hoskins blinked twice with his big eyes which immediately started to water even as his smile faded and his lips began to quiver.

“Hoskins’s afternoon repast is not pleasing to the Great and Noble Lord Black? Hoskins is … a bad elf?!?” Then, Hoskins began to weep openly and then wail rather loudly. “Hoskins IS a bad elf! Hoskins shall go now and bang his fingers in the oven door until his knuckles crack. _Bad Hoskins! Bad Hoskins!_ ”

Alarmed, Sirius rushed forward to console the heartbroken elf. “No, Hoskins, no! Your … repast looks delicious! Here, I think I will have some tea and a bite to eat while I wait.” He crammed a whole sandwich into his mouth and then smiled at the elf.

“ _Mmm! Tasty!_ ” he tried to say through a full mouth as crumbs blew everywhere.

“Oh, Hoskins is so _pleased_! So very, very, very pleased indeed! Lord Black’s kindness has given Hoskins reason to _CARRY ON LIVING_! Hoskins will step out now and allow the Great and Wonderful Lord Black to enjoy his meal! If Lord Black needs Hoskins for anything else, please to be tugging on the cord next to the fireplace!”

With that, the house elf popped out, leaving a bemused Sirius behind to sit down to a plate of sandwiches and enjoy some tea. Anything to keep that poor deluded creature from offing itself like one of the old Black elves would have done in his youth.

Outside the room, Hoskins materialized and positioned himself to monitor the parlor and its occupant.

“ _Hoskins must make a note to thank Dobby when Hoskins next sees him_ ,” Hoskins thought to himself. “ _Apparently, there can be a time for histrionic behavior after all_.”

**_Meanwhile in someone else’s memories …_ **

The Battle of Tutshill Green took place on 20 October 1979 when Death Eaters attacked a Quidditch match between the Tutshill Tornados and Puddlemere United. Their apparent intentions were, in likely order of importance, (a) to assassinate Millicent Bagnold, who had recently been elected Minister of Magic on an aggressive anti-Voldemort campaign; (b) to assassinate Puddlemere United’s star Seeker, Will Stockton, who was also the most prominent Muggleborn Quidditch player in the country; and (c) to instill general panic. Thankfully, the attack was only successful in the last goal. While the Death Eaters were prepared with a sneak attack that could take out Minister Bagnold’s bodyguards, they reckoned without the presence of James Potter and Sirius Black, both of whom were in attendance as spectators on a rare day off. When the Death Eaters apparated right onto the pitch (in a shocking breach of the stadium’s Anti-Apparition wards), Potter and Black both jumped right out of the stands and into the thick of things.

The fact that the two off-duty Auror-trainees had somehow managed to smuggle illegal second wands into the Tutshill Stadium despite it being a “Wand Free Zone” for the duration of the championship match would later be quietly swept under the rug.

Sirius focused his attention on Voldemort’s personal assassin, a female Death Eater known as Miss Demeanor and recognizable by her featureless ivory mask (which was somehow more frightening for its plainness than the garish faces carved on the other Death Eater’s masks). Meanwhile, James, in an incredible display of Transfiguration, somehow managed to selectively turn the ground under the Death Eaters into man-sized tar pits without affecting the rest of the pitch. Instantly, most of the Death Eaters found themselves up to their shoulders in tar and unable to move. The sight would have been comical had Miss Demeanor not demonstrated her own puissance by blasting herself into the air with an overpowered Ventus in the split second before the ground beneath her could be transfigured, and then cartwheeling gracefully in the air to land on solid ground before renewing her attack, now on both Sirius _and_ James.

Her speed was incredible, and as Harry watched, he could tell that Miss Demeanor – who Moody helpfully identified as Azkaban escapee Bellatrix Lestrange – had both professional dueling experience and at least some degree of Auror training, but not even that could explain her incredible speed, her precision, and (ironically, Harry thought), her _demeanor_. From what he’d been told by Reg and Lucius about the woman locked up in the Longbottom dungeon, she was completely insane and prone to giggling rants, high-pitched shrieking, and the recitation of morbid nursery rhymes and children’s songs. _This_ incarnation of Bellatrix, however, said nothing at all except the occasional incantation, with even most of her spells cast wordlessly.

And as Harry studied the woman more closely, he was further surprised by the total absence of any emotional information that he could pick up from her through his Legilimency. Granted, she was wearing a mask, but so were the other Death Eaters, and Harry had no problem detecting their emotional states. In particular, the woman was certainly aware that she was fighting her cousin, Sirius Black, (as well as James Potter, a more distant cousin), but she gave absolutely no hint of familiarity with either man. To Miss Demeanor, they were simply obstacles between her and her mission.

The battle between the three was truly impressive, but even the deadly Miss Demeanor was no match for Potter and Black together, especially with more Aurors on the way. With a low growl (the only hint of emotion she’d shown), Miss Demeanor looked up above her opponents to the stands where Minister Bagnold was being quickly ushered to safety by her security detail. Her wand flashed as she cried out two words: **_BOMBARDA MAXIMA!_**

Desperately, James leaped as far as he could towards the path of the spell, and then he stabbed his wand into the ground. The whole pitch shook violently as a massive stone Keeper’s mitt easily thirty-feet-tall thrust itself up out of the earth to _catch Bellatrix’s spell_! The mitt exploded from the force of the Bombarda, but it absorbed the entire blast in the process and no one else was harmed. Miss Demeanor was so shocked that, for a brief second, she forgot her surroundings, and that was enough for Sirius to strike her with a Cutting Curse. She screamed as she went down, blood spurting from her side.

_“Enough.”_

The word was not spoken above a conversational tone, but everyone in the stadium heard it somehow. And everyone’s attention was instantly drawn to the robe-clad figure who had not been there a second earlier. There were perhaps three quick seconds of total silence that fell over the stadium as the hundreds of attendees realized who had just arrived. It was the one man they feared above all others, so much so that not one of them dared to speak his name aloud. Then, the Dark Lord Voldemort pointed his wand at the sky – “ ** _MORSMORDRE_** ” – and the Dark Mark appeared over the Tutshill stadium. And the screaming started anew.

On the far side of the pitch, one of the Aurors tried to target Voldemort with the Killing Curse but only got out the first word before being struck down by the Dark Lord’s much quicker application of it. The other Aurors focused on him, but Voldemort just sneered.

“Kindly wait your turn,” he drawled while performing a complicated wand movement. Instantly, Sirius Black and the Aurors around him all dropped to their knees, suddenly overcome with crippling nausea and vertigo. Sirius and a few others got some spells off, but they all went wide. A few couldn’t even try as they were too busy vomiting all over the pitch.

Still on one knee, James took advantage of that instant of distraction to transfigure the pitch once more. Only instead of tar, the ground under Voldemort turned into a pit of the strongest acid he knew how to make. But to his shock, Voldemort didn’t fall into the pit. He simply floated above it and then glided to safety while addressing James.

“This marks the second time you have defied me, James Potter. There will not be a third. **_AVADA KEDAVRA!_** ”

Summoning up his strength, James stabbed the earth once more with his wand, and with a loud _clang_ , a thick column of iron shot up out of the ground to take the spell for him, exploding immediately upon impact by the spell. Voldemort snarled and fired off a second Killing Curse, and James responded by taking a step back and summoning another iron barrier that exploded like the first one but also kept James alive for another moment. But it was obvious his strength was flagging, and Harry knew all too well how exhausting it would be to transfigure so many large and durable objects one after another. James summoned a third protective barrier and then a fourth.

But when he summoned a fifth (even though he staggered in the process), James finally got lucky. Before Voldemort could destroy his cover again, he was momentarily distracted when one of the Aurors who’d been nearly incapacitated by his Vertigo Curse nevertheless got off a lucky shot with a Lacero that sliced off a piece of Voldemort’s robe. Incensed, Voldemort lashed out at the Auror and killed him instantly, but through his death, James Potter finally got his shot. He stepped forward and touched his wand to his last iron barrier. Instantly, hundreds of tiny cracks appeared in its surface, and the barrier collapsed into innumerable iron fragments suspended in mid-air. And then each of those fragments sharpened themselves into pointed projectiles that immediately shot towards Voldemort at tremendous speed.

Years earlier, while cleaning the living room at the Dursleys, Harry had happened to catch part of a military program that Vernon was watching. Specifically, one that discussed and demonstrated the effectiveness of a Muggle weapon called a _Browning machine gun_. The resemblance between the effects of that weapon and the transfiguration effect James used were striking. In a flash, Voldemort had thrown up a Protego Maxima, but even he struggled against the hail of transfigured bullets James had sent his way. That might well have been the end of Voldemort had he not done something James could never have expected – just as his shielding spell was about to collapse, Voldemort crouched … and then _rocketed up_ into the air to hover a good 75 feet above the ground. James dropped to his knees in exhaustion and shock. Harry was shocked as well, and Moody paused the memory.

“I …  was under the impression that self-propelled magical flight was impossible,” Harry said. “How is he doing that?”

Moody shrugged. “No idea. Albus never figured it out either. Nor have the Unspeakables, assuming they’d tell us if they had.” He resumed the memory.

“You see now one sample of my true power, James Potter,” Voldemort called out. “Witness another before you die! **_FIENDFYRE!_** ”

Immediately, there was utter (and perhaps literal) pandemonium, as the same portal to _somewhere else_ appeared that Harry had seen the previous February when Lockhart/Regulus cast this spell in the DADA classroom. But instead of summoning a barrier to stop Aurors from pursuit, Voldemort had summoned the hellfire for offensive purposes. This time, the portal to _somewhere else_ appeared at the tip of Voldemort’s wand, and with a cruel laugh, he blew on the hellfire as if he were trying to start up a campfire. The flames expanded rapidly and then shaped themselves into the form of a gargantuan snake that coiled around him. Harry’s mouth hung open. Stretched out, he was certain the snake would be close to a hundred yards long, much bigger than the Basilisk. And then, it reared up as if to strike and plunged its head towards James Potter.

Utterly exhausted by his transfiguration efforts, James had nothing left to give and simply closed his eyes and waited to die. And he would have had a great geyser of water not burst forth from the ground between him and the snake. The water shot up towards the hellfire snake and then wrapped around it as if to intertwine with it. Then, the water itself began to sparkle brightly, and in response, the snake began to thrash about in agony before breaking apart and fading away into nothingness. Moody briefly paused the memory to explain that the water sparkled because it had been transfigured into _aqua veritas_ , an ultra-pure magical form of water that could only be created through Alchemy and which was one of the few substances known to be capable of dousing Fiendfyre. Its sudden appearance made the identity of James’s savior obvious.

“Dumbledore!” hissed Voldemort angrily at the sight of the old wizard who now stood between him and Potter, the phoenix Fawkes perched on his shoulder. If the man had encountered any difficulties in bypassing the wards of the Dark Mark, he certainly didn’t show them.

“Why yes, Lord Voldemort,” Dumbledore said brightly. “I’m so pleased you remember my name.” He tilted his head inquisitively. “I don’t suppose I can persuade you to simply surrender, can I? This will be our third encounter, and the last two times, you were forced to make an expeditious retreat. Aren’t you afraid your luck will run out?”

The dark wizard sneered.  “Not luck, old man. _Skill_. Or perhaps you would like to join me up here in the sky so that we could converse as _equals_?”

Dumbledore chortled. “Oh yes, I see that you’ve mastered the art of self-powered flight. Quite extraordinary. Though one wonders what sort of sacrifices you’ve had to make to acquire such a gift. Personally, I prefer more traditional and elegant forms of magic.”

“Such as?” Voldemort drawled, though Harry thought he detected a hint of concern in his voice.

Dumbledore swiftly raised his left hand into the air while casually holding his wand in his right. To Harry’s surprise, he was holding up what appeared to be a deck of Muggle playing cards! Dumbledore smiled broadly at his enemy.

“Pick a card, Voldemort. Any card!” Then, he brought his wand up and touched it to the deck which instantly exploded out of his hands as if he were playing a game of 52-Pickup. But the cards didn’t fall to the ground. Instead, they flew up into the sky towards Voldemort at great speed, with each card spinning wildly as it went. Instantly, Voldemort had a Protego shield in place, but to his shock, the shield didn’t simply repel the cards. Rather, upon impact, each individual card continued to spin in place, giving off sparks as if each was a tiny buzz-saw intent on cutting through the shield. According to Moody, Dumbledore had enchanted each card to be nearly indestructible and razor-sharp. Even worse for Voldemort, the cards could _track him_ in the sky, and those cards that couldn’t get at his shield directly spun off in their flight and tried to get _around_ it, forcing him to convert the shield into a Protego orb. But despite his best efforts, his shields were beginning to visibly crack under the sheer number of spinning cards attacking him.

Furious, Voldemort flung his arms out, causing his shield to explode outward and briefly dispel the card-swarm. They quickly regrouped, however, and Voldemort was forced to take evasive actions. The Dark Lord tried wind, fire, and lightning-based curses, but while each attack would whittle away some of the cards, there were still too many in pursuit. Finally, in a fury, Voldemort gave a command to his Death Eaters through the Sonorous Charm, and both he and they apparated away. While there were casualties (many of whom were people trampled in the panic when Voldemort summoned Fiendfyre), there were only two fatalities on this day – the day Albus Dumbledore was declared the only wizard Voldemort feared.

**_The Forest of Bellatrix Lestrange’s Mind_ **

Desperately, the black bat that was Severus Snape twisted and twirled through the mass of Fwoopers as they sang their maddening song. It could not have been a coincidence, Snape thought, that this particular psychic trap suddenly sprang into existence when he flew over the maze as a bat. In his normal form, he could have used Occlumency to block out the wretched bird-song at least to some extent. But as a bat, echolocation was too fundamental to his self-image; he simply did not have the option of not listening to any part of his environment. Finally, Snape saw what he was looking for: an opening through the multicolored flock and, below it, a gap in the branches of the forest below. Snape gave one last powerful flap of his wings before tucking them in and dive-bombing straight down. The Fwoopers scattered for a moment before turning as one to follow him down.

Barely thirty feet above the forest floor, Snape extended his wings to slow his descent and then transformed himself back into his human form in time to drop to the ground in a roll. The mad chittering of the Fwoopers coming behind him showed that the danger was not over yet, but in his human form, it was a danger he was better able to address. From a crouched position on the ground, Snape pulled out his wand and aimed at the flock. With a single word from him, an enormous gout of flame burst forth from his wand tip to immolate the angry birds, as well as a decent-sized patch of the trees around them.

Once the hideous sounds of the accursed birds had faded to nothing, Snape slowly rose and surveyed his surroundings. He was out of the maze and past the birds, but he was now on a lonely barren path through a sinister twisted forest. The Legilimens was quite certain that Bellatrix’s mental defenses were already actively adapting to his countermeasures, and he wondered what new adaptations and surprises were in store.

His curiosity was answered when a black arrow slammed into his collarbone hard enough to break it.

In the dungeon cell, Regulus and Lucius were relieved that Snape finally seemed to grow calmer … right up until his whole body jerked and a large spurt of blood shot out of his shoulder.

“MERLIN’S BALLS!” Regulus exclaimed as Lucius watched in horror. Reg was the first to recover, and he vanished Snape’s coat and shirt before casting a diagnostic charm. There was a jagged hole in the man’s shoulder that was still leaking blood at an alarming rate.

“Well?” Lucius asked impatiently. “How is this possible?”

Regulus looked grim. “I don’t know how it’s possible, Lucius, but according to my charm, Severus seems to have been shot by an arrow that missed his heart by less than six inches!”

Severus recovered from the injury just barely in time to block a second arrow with a Protego shield. By then, he was able to see where the arrows had come from, and his blood ran cold. Standing on a nearby tree branch, he could now see a female figure in night-black robes and wearing a Death Eater mask. Specifically, the distinctive featureless mask worn by Miss Demeanor when she was killing on the orders of their Lord. Snape strengthened his shield while also reaching up to yank the arrow out of his shoulder with a painful gasp. Miss Demeanor sent a few more arrows his way, but he was able to deflect them easily even as he healed the damage to his shoulder magically. Then, his eyes narrowed in suspicion – from what he knew of the woman, it was unlike Miss Demeanor to not press her advantage. Snape extended his Legilimency senses in all directions, and a soft high-pitched giggle from behind him gave just enough warning. He leaped to one side to dodge the arrow that would otherwise have struck the back of his head.

Rolling to safety, Snape stood with his back to a tree and set up another Protego. His worst fears were confirmed when a second figure stepped out of the brush: an unmasked Bellatrix Lestrange, attired in filthy Azkaban rags instead of the immaculate black Death Eater robes worn by her other self but still armed with an identical bow. Snape grimaced as he considered his suddenly dire situation.  He was now facing _two_ separate incarnations of the same person, Bellatrix Lestrange at two different points in her mental existence. Which also meant he was now facing _two_ of the best duelists to have ever taken the Dark Mark.

Even as Snape tried to keep an eye on both women, Miss Demeanor obliged by leaping down from her tree branch. As she did, her bow seemed to turn to black smoke before reforming into the shape of a wand which she wasted no time in turning against him with a barrage of deadly spells. Meanwhile, Bellatrix’s bow also transformed into a wand (the _same_ wand, apparently, as that used by her other self). Comparing the two side-by-side would have been fascinating to Snape had the situation not become so dangerous. Miss Demeanor was every bit as focused and efficient as her reputation would have indicted. Bellatrix, on the other hand, was in a frenzy of motion and emotion, flinging curses wildly even as she cackled and gibbered.

Suddenly, Snape realized what must have happened. The Miss Demeanor persona was one constructed by Rookwood’s foul perversion of Occlumency that was used to shape the original Bellatrix Black’s personality into one focused only on killing in the name of the Dark Lord. But being a completely artificial persona, it was incapable of standing up to the trauma of Azkaban. And so, it receded and allowed the shattered remnants of Bellatrix’s true personality to bear the brunt of the Dementors. The result? Dissociation – the consequence of two Occlumency-based personalities, neither of which could agree on which was real. The very same risk of running parallel identities that he had warned Harry Potter of not so long ago.

“It seems you have me at a disadvantage, ladies,” he drawled with far more confidence than he felt. “Two against one hardly seems fair.”  Then, he turned to sneer at Bellatrix. “Even if one is only a shattered husk who can at best serve as a distraction for her better half.”

“SHATTERED HUSK?!? BETTER HALF?!?” Bellatrix shrieked. “I’LL SHOW YOU WHO THE BETTER HALF IS!!!”

With that, the maddened woman let loose with a flurry of cutting spells. Instantly, Snape abandoned his Protego and jumped out of the way of Miss Demeanor’s attacks and _into_ Bellatrix’s spells … which he neatly parried straight towards Miss Demeanor with his Averto shield. She was caught by surprise, and a few of those hexes managed to strike the assassin, causing her to cry out to Bellatrix in anger.

“Be careful, _you fool_! He’s trying to bait us into turning against one another!”

“FOOL?!? YOU CALL ME A FOOL?!? I AM THE GREATEST, MOST BELOVED OF OUR MASTER’S DEATH EATERS!!!”

As Snape had hoped, the enraged and insane woman turned her fury on her own other self, and as Bellatrix and Miss Demeanor began to swap curses, Snape ran off into the woods in the hope that he could circle around them before they realized his stratagem.

“ _If both of Bellatrix’s personae are here together,_ ” he thought to himself, “ _they must be guarding something. Which means I’m actually drawing close to Bellatrix’s memory palace!_”

He ran for several seconds through the underbrush as the sound of spellfire echoed through the forest. And then, the spellfire abruptly stopped.

“ _Wonderful_ ,” he thought bitterly. “ _Best case scenario: Bellatrix has destroyed or incapacitated Miss Demeanor, which means I’m one-on-one with the crazier but less dangerous personality. Worst case scenario: Bellatrix finally realized that I’m the true enemy, and they’re both coming for me. And since they will have adapted to my strategy of pitting them against one another, I have little chance against both Bellatrixes (Bellatrices?) together._ ”

As Snape made his way swiftly through the forest, he considered his options. The fact that two iterations of Bellatrix Lestrange could act independently against him was not a strategy he could employ himself. While he was certainly capable of generating secondary personalities, they would not have enough definition to act as useful allies in this psychic environment. Even if he could cause, say, Mr. X or Hubert Turnipseed to materialize, he would still have to direct their actions, thus halving his own combat readiness rather than doubling it.

Then, Snape froze as an idea popped into his head. It was a reckless, dangerous idea, but it was one he would at least need to consider if he hoped to survive this experience. Many, many years before, when he’d only begun to explore the deeper mysteries of Occlumency, he’d come across an obscure technique – _Advocatus Diaboli_. Not nearly as sinister as its name implied, the technique allowed him to manifest a true secondary personality, one that was neither based on his own nor created from scratch. Rather, the Advocatus was derived from Snape’s understanding of the personality of another real-life person, someone who Snape knew well and whose opinions he valued, but whose views and values were different enough from his own that the Advocatus could give impartial advice and opinion on everything from reviewing homework assignments to major life decisions. He’d been quite proud to develop his own Advocatus by the age of fourteen … and disappointed when circumstances had forced him to lock it away forever in the deepest confines of his own memory palace.

It was not helpful at all to have an Advocatus Diaboli who had come to despise you.

Then, just up ahead, Severus saw an opening in the forest that led to what appeared to be a cave entrance. He rushed forward only to be blasted into the air by a Bombarda from somewhere behind. He landed in a heap and felt a sharp pain as his leg broke from the impact.

(While the pain was excruciating, Snape might well have found some amusement in the panicked and horrified reactions of Regulus and Lucius when his physical leg spontaneously snapped at an odd angle.)

Shaking off the impact, Snape quickly focused his Occlumency to neutralize his capacity to feel pain. “ _Useful technique, that_ ,” he thought through a growing delirium. “ _I must remember to teach it to Sensible Potter. Assuming I survive, that is._ ”

Focusing past the pain, he sent a return Blasting Curse of his own back towards his pursuers, but Miss Demeanor was able to casually dodge his attack with inhuman grace. Then, off to his side, Snape was distracted by the sound of trees being pulled up from their roots, and seconds later, Bellatrix emerged from the woods atop an enormous oak that she’d transfigured into a humanoid shape and animated before riding it into battle as if it were an Ent from that old Muggle book that Lily had once forced him to read. From the opposite side of the clearing, Miss Demeanor leaped from tree to tree as she moved into position for the kill.

Snape closed his eyes and focused on his last resort. He reached deep inside his own psyche and unlocked a long-hidden door that he’d barricaded shut sometime around the age of sixteen. Bellatrix and her Ent advanced towards him menacingly when suddenly there was another explosion, this time at the midsection of the Ent. It shuddered violently, and Bellatrix was flung from it down to the ground. A second explosion blasted out one of its legs and a third spell caused the whole tree to catch fire. Immediately, the mighty oak started to fall … right towards the stunned and prone Bellatrix. At the last possible second, she apparated away just before the great flaming mass would have crushed her.

Meanwhile, Miss Demeanor looked around wildly in search of the new intruder. Taking advantage of her distraction, Snape fired off several vicious curses towards the assassin. Most she was able to dodge or parry, but a few got through. Her situation grew worse when more spells came at her at a flanking direction from deeper in the forest. Outnumbered and unable to defend against both attackers, Miss Demeanor followed the lead of her other self and apparated away.

The immediate threat over, Snape took the opportunity to heal his leg while he waited for his “savior” to approach. Seconds later, the Advocatus Diabolis emerged from the forest, her red hair flashing like fire itself in the reflected glow of the still-burning tree. And as she drew near, her eyes flashed the green of the Killing Curse. Snape closed his eyes in resignation.

“ _Wonderful_ ,” he thought. “ _Twenty seconds in, and she’s already angry with me._ ”

“It’s been quite a long time, _Snivellus_ ,” said Lily Evans with a cold sneer. “Mind telling me what you’ve dragged me into now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Snape continues his journey through the mind of Bellatrix Lestrange, but the arrival of a decidedly unhappy Lily Evans only brings new horrors. Meanwhile, Moody shows Harry one more memory than he’d planned, and later, Harry encounters a nightmare of a different sort.  
> AN 1: Tentative update schedule (obviously the holidays are screwing with everything).  
> Dec 19, 2018 – DEM Ch 26 update on ff(dot)net and AO3  
> Dec 27, 2018 – Strangers In Boston on TSM’s website for Patrons  
> Jan 2, 2019 – DEM Ch 27 draft on TSM’s website for Discord followers  
> Jan 5, 2019 – DEM Ch 27 on ff(dot)net and AO3  
> AN 2: Italicized passages are from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ch 10. As per usual, I only directly quote JKR when it’s POS plot relevant.  
> AN 3: Special shout-out to the good folks at the POS-Editorial chat on The Sinister Man’s Discord Page: patronus, darkphoenix31, FeatheryMinx, CuredentTepes, and, of course, the indefatigable Ozzie.   
> Check out the Discord Page yourself if you wish to get advance peeks at upcoming chapters, discuss your POS theories, or find out about (and hopefully support) The Sinister Man’s original fiction.  
> AN 4: Milestones! We have broken 11k Followers! And we have over 900 members on The Sinister Man’s Discord page!


	28. Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (pt 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible Trigger Warning: An unexpected and very violent death. Sort of. And a fairly horrific Neil Gaiman reference.

**_HARRY POTTER  
AND THE DEATH EATER MENACE_ **

**_Harry Potter and all associate characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership._ **

**_CHAPTER 27: Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (pt 3)_ **

**_ Possible Trigger Warning _ ** **: This chapter has perhaps the darkest scene I've written since Ron had to vomit up all those spiders. There will be an unexpected and very violent death. Sort of. Along a fairly horrific Neil Gaiman reference.**

_The immediate threat over, Snape took the opportunity to heal his leg while he waited for his "savior" to approach. Seconds later, the Advocatus Diaboli emerged from the forest, her red hair flashing like fire itself in the reflected glow of the still-burning tree. And as she drew near, her eyes flashed the green of the Killing Curse. Snape closed his eyes in resignation._

_"Wonderful," he thought. "Twenty seconds in, and she's already angry with me."_

_"It's been quite a long time,_ Snivellus _," said Lily Evans with a cold sneer. "Mind telling me what you've dragged me into now?"_

Despite her apparent anger, this manifestation of Lily was not without mercy, as shown when she reached out a hand to help Snape to his feet. He regarded her cautiously. Superficially, she appeared as she did on the day when he'd ruined everything by calling her a Mudblood in front of Potter and his stooges. It was only a few months later, after he'd decided that their friendship was irretrievably broken, that he'd locked his Advocatus away deep in his subconscious. But despite her youth, this Lily's eyes sparkled with an incisive intelligence that was more perceptive and far more calculating than would have been possible for her 16-year-old Gryffindor self. In other words, this was a Lily who could have gone to Slytherin.

"I imagine you know exactly what you've been dragged into. After all, you know everything I know about our situation, albeit filtered through the lens of Lily's personality. Or as best I could recreate her personality within my own mind."

"I doubt I know _everything_ you know, Snape. You forget how much you _love_ to talk and show off how clever you are. I imagine I'll be denied some information here and there just so that you can smugly deliver plot exposition like a detective in a Muggle mystery novel." She smirked at him with a measure of contempt. "I know the basics, of course. Having consistently made bad decisions for the first thirty-four years of your life, you have finally decided to do what's right but only in the most over-complicated, wrongheaded way possible. I mean, we wouldn't be having this conversation in a forest that represents the twisted psyche of a Death Eater with multiple personalities if you'd just had the sense to tell Dumbledore about the Horcruxes, now would we?"

"Perhaps not," he conceded, "but in that case, you would not be here to experience the limited form of existence my Occlumency allows you."

Her eyes narrowed. "Cut the crap, Snape. I'm here because you need me. Having a fully independent secondary personality is the only way you'll have a chance against two independently functioning copies of Bellatrix. And quite frankly, considering our shared history, I was perfectly happy with a state of quiescent nonexistence. It was certainly preferable to being here with _you_."

"Enough, Lily," he snapped. "You know what's at stake. We must find a way to penetrate Bellatrix's memory palace and find out where she hid the Horcrux that the Dark Lord assigned to her. And we must do so together if we're to have any chance to succeed."

"Evans," she answered coldly. "You can't be on a first name basis with Mudbloods, Snape. Mulciber and Rosier wouldn't approve."

A flash of anguish passed over Snape's face before it returned to its normal emotionless mask. "So be it. Though I am curious as to why you wish to be known as Evans instead of Potter."

She snorted. "Because your brain would explode in anger if you were forced to refer to your Advocatus by that name. But that's all in my future, anyway. You have no idea why I ended up with Potter, so naturally I don't either. Perhaps _he_ finally grew up."

"I somehow doubt that was the reason, Li – … Evans."

"Whatever, Snape. Let's just get this over with," she said as strode off confidently towards the cave entrance Severus had spotted. "Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that after all these years, you finally realized I was _right_ about all those Junior Death Eaters whose approval mattered more to you than my friendship."

"Can we _not_ do this now?" Snape said through gritted teeth as he followed. "We are deep within the fractured psyche of Bellatrix Lestrange and about to enter her memory palace where things will only grow more dangerous. I'm sure her Occlumency defenses are already adapting to your presence and developing new strategies to destroy us. It is _not helpful_ for you to obsess over your anger towards me, and certainly not helpful for you to act like …." He bit off the end of that sentence before finishing it, but Lily noticed.

"Like a Mudblood?" she asked angrily.

He grimaced. "I was going to say like an absolute bitch. Is that better or worse?"

Lily glared at him before suddenly bursting into laughter. "Oh honestly, Snape! I can't believe I need to remind you of such an important detail that I'm sure you already know but seem to have completely forgotten!"

"What?" he asked, angry at the implied insult to his cunning and memory. "What have I forgotten that's so important?"

She stepped towards him and looked at his face with surprising fondness given her previous hostility.

" _That I am not Lily Evans, you dunderhead!_ I'm your Advocatus Diaboli which you chose to base on your understanding of Lily's character! And so, if I'm acting like ' _a bitch_ ,' it means two things. First, ' _acting like a bitch_ ' is what you would expect the real Lily to do if she were here under these circumstances. And more importantly, I'm acting that way because subconsciously you think you _deserve_ having Lily to treat you with such hostility. Now, would you _please_ get over all your ridiculous feelings of guilt over all the things you did that you believe justify Lily's anger so we can get on with it?"

Severus growled at his Advocatus before stalking into the cave entrance with a still-amused Lily close behind. Two wordless Lumos spells let up the cavern once they were inside, and after about fifty feet of rough-hewn rock walls, both Severus and Lily were surprised when they transitioned into a corridor with smooth marble walls, floor, and ceiling. They were further surprised when they saw the first painting hung on the wall. Lily gasped. It was a moving portrait of Alice Longbottom writhing on a floor in agony. Next to the painting was a brass placard bearing an inscription.

 _Alice Longbottom_  
November 1981  
Extreme Cruciatus Torture

While Lily stared at the image of her former friend suffering under magical torture, Severus moved past her towards a second painting just a few feet away. This one depicted Frank Longbottom in similar circumstances. Nearby was a third portrait bearing the name of some wizard Snape didn't know and depicting the pale corpse of someone slain by the Killing Curse. Beyond them, the corridor stretched on into the distance with scores of portraits lining both walls

"Her victims?" Lily asked.

Snape nodded. "But are they hung here as trophies? Or as reminders that she is past redemption? Either way, I fear we have a long walk ahead of us."

With that, he headed cautiously down the grisly corridor with Lily at his side.

"What did you mean _past redemption_?" she asked. Snape paused before answering.

"That … is something I would not have expected Lily to understand. And so, you don't either. Every intentional murder damages the soul and degrades the murderer. But the Killing Curse does so in a more concrete manner. What most educated wizards know about the Killing Curse is that to meet its esoteric requirements, the caster must be able to visualize at least one person who he hates enough to kill. What is less widely known are the aftereffects."

"What? Death? I think most people have figured that much out."

Snape's lip curled at his former friend's flippancy. "I _meant_ the aftereffects on the _caster_. Successfully casting the Killing Curse – or indeed, any of the Unforgivables – implants an _idea_ into the caster's mind. One which cannot be fully dislodged save by the most delicate psychic surgery. And one which grows ever stronger with each successive Unforgiveable cast."

"What idea?" Lily asked somewhat fearfully.

"Those curses are called _Unforgivable_ for a reason: They instill a personal conviction that the caster has done something for which he can never be forgiven. Something which has rendered him _irredeemable_. I've always suspected that the reason the Dark Lord required his Death Eaters to make use of Unforgiveables as part of their initiation ceremonies and encouraged them to use the Unforgiveables freely when on raids was to inculcate that sense of hopeless irredeemability within his followers. To make them believe that after joining him, it simply would not be possible to ever truly rejoin civilized society and thus, that it was only among the Death Eaters that they could ever truly find companionship. In other words, past a certain point, someone like Bellatrix Lestrange would have accepted the fact that she was _utterly damned_. And being damned, there was nothing to stop her from committing even viler crimes because there could be no worse penalty to impose upon her."

Lily was silent for a long terrible moment before she spoke again.

"How many Unforgiveables did _you_ cast as a Death Eater?" she finally asked in a quiet voice.

"Do you not know? You are a part of me, after all."

"No, I don't know. Perhaps that's something else you didn't want the real Lily to know either."

"Then I think it best that you retain your ignorance on that point, lest your opinion of me diminish even further."

They continued in silence for a moment before she spoke again.

"Do you think you're … _irredeemable_?"

Snape snorted. "Your namesake certainly seemed to think so."

"Don't be so sure … Severus."

He stopped and looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

The Advocatus unexpectedly smiled at him. "There are things I don't know because you don't want to believe the real Lily could know them. But there are also things _I_ know, or at least suspect, that _you_ don't know because you won't allow yourself to consider them as possibilities."

"Such as?"

"Well, as you no doubt recall, Frank Longbottom deduced that you only called Lily a Mudblood to curry favor with Mulciber and Rosier because you were tired of being picked on as a blood traitor. But seriously, has it _never_ occurred to you that Lily might have realized the same thing? That she didn't cut you off for good solely because she was offended at that word but rather because she finally realized how untenable and even dangerous your position in Slytherin House was so long as you two stayed friends?"

Snape stared at her. "Are you suggesting that the reason Lily cut all ties with me was … a way of _protecting_ me from my own housemates?"

"Well, honestly, Severus, I don't actually _know_ , since I'm _not_ Lily. I'm just saying that's a possible explanation for the way she treated you for your last two years at Hogwarts. After all, having her as a public enemy _really did_ improve your standing greatly in Slytherin. In fact, it was only after you and she parted company that you were seriously targeted for recruitment into the Death Eaters. And now that we think about it, that's also _exactly_ what she did with Harry, isn't it? Cut him out of the Potter family completely and for his own good because she thought that was the best way to protect him? Come now, Sev. For all her virtues, you know one of Lily's least attractive features is her need to be a martyr for the cause."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "Even if that is … a possibility, how is it that you have considered this theory but I never have?"

The Advocatus laughed. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because at the end of the day, you've always been far too in love with your insecurity and bitterness to ever look past someone rejecting you and wonder why they did it! And consequently, the idea that Lily would hate you forever because of a single insult appealed to that Romantic-Gothic persona you've been crafting since you were out of short pants."

"I have not been crafting …!"

"When you first met Lily, you literally appeared to her from inside the hollow of a tree. Like Ariel from _The Tempest_ except that you were ghostly pale and wearing all-black old-fashioned clothes. Percy and Mary Shelley would have each written a novel about you if they'd been there to see it."

Severus snorted contemptuously but said nothing. The two continued on down the long corridor. Lost in his own thoughts, Snape was only barely aware of the graphic portraits depicting the dozens and dozens of Bellatrix's victims. He could afford the introspection; Lily was studying everything intently (as she always did), and so in time, he would remember everything she saw. Finally, after just passing just under a hundred paintings of torture and murder victims, the two at last came to a massive iron door with no visible lock or handle.

It was at this point that Severus made what he later realized was a very serious mistake: He asked his Advocatus a question.

"If Lily didn't really hate me at school but was only pretending to out of a foolish desire to protect me, why did she continue the deception for years after? Even after the Dark Lord was defeated and I continued to serve Dumbledore?"

The Advocatus hesitated and then looked at him sadly. "Because, Severus, by then she knew you had actually become a Death Eater. She knew that you had told Voldemort of the Prophecy to win a seat in his Inner Circle. And she knew that in doing so you had sent him to murder her entire family. So you see, by that point, you'd given her a _real_ reason to hate you."

Snape was left speechless by what the Advocatus had said, while the Advocatus could only watch as the pain of her revelation washed over him. Then, as one, they recognized their mistake – Snape had inadvertently distracted his Advocatus with his painful question, which meant that neither of them was paying close enough attention to their surroundings to prevent the mental landscape from arbitrarily changing. They had just enough time to realize the danger when suddenly, the floor dropped out from beneath them, dropping them both into a deep pit.

As one (naturally), Severus and Lily pointed their wands at each other and cast. " ** _ARRESTO MOMENTUM!_** " Their sudden fall slowed down to that of a leaf dropping fluttering down slowly on a windless day, and after a few seconds, they could see a floor some twenty feet below. The two allowed themselves to fall slowly for another few seconds before they simultaneously dismissed their spells so that they could drop to the ground in preparation for an ambush.

No attack came. Instead, the two found themselves in a thirty-by-thirty room with a very high ceiling. On one wall stood a massive iron door that looked identical to the one they'd seen above. Indeed, Severus thought it was likely the _same_ door existing in both locations, for that was often how geography worked in mindscapes. Environments changed, but _landmarks_ were consistent. This door marked the boundary to the next level of Bellatrix's mind, and so it would appear the same wherever they sought to cross over it.

The room was sparse but not empty. There was a small raised platform near the wall opposite the door. On the left side of the platform was a side table bearing an empty candleholder and a long piece of what seemed to be cotton string. On the right side was a matching side table bearing what appeared to be bottle of wine and a small book. From the space between the two side tables, it appeared that some absent piece was meant to be placed there, most likely a chair of some kind. Along the wall behind the platform rested three cauldrons.

Then, from up above, they heard a grinding sound as the hole that had dropped them into this room closed itself up. Barely a second later, there was a loud _clang_ as metal spikes popped down from the ceiling which then began to slowly drop towards them.

" _Seriously_?" Lily exclaimed as if offended by the nature of the trap. "That is perhaps the most cliched thing I've ever seen in my entire life. What, are there no train tracks for Bellatrix to tie us to?"

"No," answered Severus, "this is quite serious. It is the very fact that it _is_ a cliché that gives it power over us. Quickly! The door!"

As one, Severus and Lily fired their most powerful Alohomoras at the iron door, but there was no effect. Annoyed, Severus swiftly turned his attention to the objects in the room, though he could make no sense of their purpose or arrangement. Even a quick check of the book on the side table revealed its pages to be blank.

"Think! There most be a reason that these items are here. Some clue that can help us escape."

"Why though?" Lily asked while trying unsuccessfully to transfigure a hole in the wall which seemed immune to such magic. "You realized back at the start of this whole thing that Bellatrix wasn't obligated to give you clues. And moreover, that what seemed to be clues were probably traps. What makes this room different?"

"It is the nature of the scenario. It forces us to accept the reality of a death trap with, as you noted, the ridiculous cliché of a spike-filled ceiling that slowly descends to kill us. So slowly in fact that we have time to casually discuss the matter. There _must_ be a clue, a secret way to escape that we can only find through cleverness and ingenuity, because by force of narrative, that way is the _only_ way out, with all other strategies doomed to failure. If she tried to cheat us here with false clues, the narrative structure of the trap would collapse, and the Alohomoras would have worked to free us. But where is the clue?"

As if in response to his question, the mad girlish voice of Bellatrix Lestrange rang out from somewhere above.

" _Awww! Does widdle Sevie-Poo want a clue? Ahahahaha!_ "

"Oh, for God's sake," Lily muttered under her breath.

" _Let's see what you make of this then –_

 _To open the door and pass beyond_  
and go where you want to go,  
Just sit with your Love and drink with your Love  
and read by your Love's warm glow."

"More riddles," Lily said sarcastically. "How … adorable. Any ideas what all that rubbish means?"

Severus went very still with his back to Lily, while the spiked ceiling slowly continued its descent. Finally, he spoke softly and almost haltingly.

"Do … do you think it is actually possible ... for Lily and me to be friends again?"

The Advocatus was gobsmacked. "Seriously? You think this is the proper time for discussing that?"

He turned to face her and glanced upwards. "It is possible we may never have another chance?"

Lily huffed angrily. "Fine. _Speaking as your Advocatus_ , I would say it's not about getting her to forgive you for your sins anymore. You _both_ need to understand and accept and forgive each other for your mistakes. Lily was and is justifiably angry that you joined Voldemort and that your recklessness and impulsiveness and desire for power endangered the lives of her husband and children. And you were and are justifiably angry that she cut you off so completely that it practically drove you into Voldemort's arms. And, worse, she later did the same thing to Harry, and in both cases, it was because she arrogantly decided to do what she thought was best for her loved ones due to her _lifelong martyr complex_!"

Then, she wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "And _I suppose_ you're also still angry that she married someone you despise with the heat of a thousand suns. Can you ever forgive her for _that_ , Severus? Moreover, do you really think you could ever maintain a friendship with her while James is in the picture? I mean, it's not like Lady Potter would put up with you continually insulting her husband in every single conversation. And I haven't even gotten to the matter of _the Other Potter,_ as you still like to call him. Considering all that, do you even _want_ to make up with Lily?"

Snape stood still in silent thought as the spikes drew ever closer. "I don't know," he finally said quietly.

"Well then, how about we set that aside for a while and work on solving that riddle instead?"

Snape closed his eyes and took two deep breaths before he spoke again. "I know the answer to the riddle. I knew it as soon as Bellatrix uttered the words."

Lily's brow furrowed. "What? What's the answer? Wait. Different question. How is it possible for you to know the answer but not me?"

He opened his eyes and looked long and hard at Lily's face, as if memorizing an image of her from happier days long since gone.

"You don't know it because it's a cruel riddle with a cruel answer. And I think it would break my heart if Lily were here and could have guessed the solution at once."

She shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand. What …?"

" ** _SECTUMSEMPRA!_** " he cried out in an anguished voice before she could finish the question. The spell struck with pinpoint precision, and Lily's body dropped to the ground, her head neatly removed from her shoulders.

Instantly, he turned away and clamped his hand over his mouth while he struggled to retain his composure.

" _It's not really her. It's not really her. It's not really her._ "

He whispered the words again and again like a mantra until his emotions came back under control. Then, he moved quickly towards the body and severed head, his wand already in motion. In turn, Lily's clothing was vanished away and her head and nude body levitated over to the waiting cauldrons. Then, using spells that every good potion master knew but which were customarily meant for animal ingredients rather than human corpses (at least among every _reputable_ potion master), he set to work as the spiked ceiling inched ever closer.

One spell scoured the head down to a bare skull which he levitated over to the table holding the bottle of wine. A second spell deboned and disassembled the corpse, with the bare bones going into one cauldron, all the body fat going into another, and everything else unceremoniously dropped into the last. A third spell instantly rendered the body fat into tallow before he summoned the cotton string from the table next to the candleholder. With a wave of his wand, some of the tallow flowed up around the string and hardened to make a candle.

Finally, at his command, Lily's bones flew up out of the middle cauldron towards the platform before assembling themselves into the shape of a ghoulish and uncomfortable-looking stool that he reinforced with powerful Sticking Charms. By now, the ceiling was barely ten feet above him. Steeling his resolve once more, Snape sat down on the stool (" _sit with your Love_ ") and poured some of the wine into Lily's skull (" _drink with your Love_ ") which he then lifted to his lips and tipped back. The wine burned slightly, but there was no poison. This trap was meant to harm him in far worse ways. Finally, he placed the candle into its holder and lit it with his wand before opening the book once more _._ By the light of the candle ( _"read by your Love's warm glow"_ ), words now appeared which he read aloud.

**_Open, door, that I may pass beyond and find my doom._ **

Severus sneered at the banality of the pass phrase even as the iron door slide open. The spikes were mere inches away as he strode out of the room without so much as a backward glance at Lily's defiled remains.

Beyond the iron door was another dark corridor, and despite his Lumos, Snape found the gloom oppressive. After a few minutes' walk, he was surprised to see what appeared to be a Gringotts vault door ahead. He focused his psychic power and cast the strongest Unlocking Charm he knew. The door slowly opened. That, Snape thought, was a bad sign. That the vault door was susceptible to _any_ Charm meant that the true danger was within and that he was being lured towards it. Cautiously, he made his way into the vault.

Inside, he found a cavernous area full of golden coins and valuable antiques and arcane objects of all kinds, the skins of strange creatures (some of which Snape didn't even recognize), several enormous rack of potions in jeweled flasks, and a skull wearing a crown. There was no order or method to the vault, just great piles of coins and precious objects that were two, even three times as tall as a man. The only thing Snape could see that was _not_ priceless in some way was at once incongruous but also oddly appropriate for the demented mind he was exploring – on the far side of the room was an incredibly ornate iron maiden that was decorated with Bellatrix Lestrange's face and bound with heavy chains.

He took a few steps towards the iron maiden only to dive for cover when a high-pitched voice shrieked: " ** _CRUCIO!_** " The curse flew over his head, as Bellatrix Lestrange emerged from behind one giant stack of gold. Simultaneously, Miss Demeanor stepped out from behind another stack on the opposite side of the room and opened fire as well. He ducked and rolled, slashing out towards Lestrange as he did. As his wand struck a pile of gold coins, he transfigured them into an enormous flurry of gold dust which he sent towards Lestrange as a dust storm (similar to the attack he used months before at Longbottom Manor, the one that ruined Augusta Longbottom's beloved Hepplewhite table). With Lestrange distracted for a few seconds, he turned to Miss Demeanor and engaged in a furious duel with her even as he tried to move towards more effective cover. His brief one-on-one battle only lasted for a few seconds, however, before Lestrange dispelled his dust storm and lashed out with a Cutting Curse that caught him in his side.

In the real world, a massive gash opened in Snape's side, and blood spurted forth. Instantly, Regulus tried to heal it, but Snape by this point was already deathly pale from blood loss, and it was not possible to feed him a Blood Replenisher while the Legilimency probe was ongoing. All Regulus and Lucius knew was that if Snape couldn't withdraw from Bellatrix's mind soon, he would die of his injuries regardless of what healing magic they brought to bear.

Snape screamed and fell to one knee as the Cutting Curse tore into him, but he managed to cast one more spell towards Miss Demeanor, a Blasting Curse that she easily dodged. Unfortunately for her, he was actually aiming for a huge mound of gold coins behind her which the explosion caused to fall on her. She tried to leap out of the way, but the coins still landed on her with enough weight to bury her from the waist down and keep her pinned. But that minor victory only opened him up to another attack from Lestrange who disarmed him and then bound him tightly. He was briefly surprised when Lestrange's Incarcerous spell manifested not as thick ropes but as barbed wire that cut into his skin (and produced a stigmata-like effect on his physical body that horrified Lucius and Regulus). But then, he remembered who he was dealing with and decided the alteration made perfect sense.

"Silly Sevie, Silly Sevie!" Lestrange giggled in her disturbing high-pitched voice. "Clipped your wings at least, haven't I! No trouble at all now that you don't have your _filthy Mudblood_ around to protect you! What would our Lord say about you being a disgusting _blood traitor_ if he could see?!"

From across the room, Miss Demeanor shouted to Lestrange even as she fought to free herself from the gold coins. "I imagine he would say _'Quit dawdling and KILL the blood traitor instead of making a show of it!_ ' That or ' _Free Miss Demeanor and let her kill Snape if you can't be bothered to!_'"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Lestrange screamed hysterically. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! NOT AFTER YOU HID LIKE A COWARD IN THE CATACOMBS OF MY MIND ALL THESE YEARS! _"_

While the two parts of Bellatrix's mind screamed at each other, Snape considered his options. They were quite limited, especially since he was fairly certain his physical body would bleed to death soon if he couldn't end the battle quickly. He could free himself at least if he moved quickly and stealthily, but it was still a two-on-one fight with no way for him to even the odds.

" _… or is there_?" he thought as he was suddenly struck by both realization and inspiration. With a subtle gesture, his wand flew back to his hand without either woman noticing. But then, instead of immediately dispelling his bonds, he carefully turned so that his wand was pointed towards the iron maiden. He steeled himself and focused all of his psychic strength on one single (and singularly unexpected) spell.

" ** _ALOHOMORA!_** "

At that, both of his attackers turned in his direction and screamed in fury, as the shackles on the iron maiden fell away and the device itself flew open. A lithe emaciated female staggered forth and nearly fell … before she realized where she was and who stood before her. And then, the face of Bellatrix Black, aged 18, lit up in utter fury.

" ** _FULMINATA!_** " she cried out while pointing the wand she'd somehow produced towards Lestrange. Snape quickly shut his eyes and braced himself as a massive bolt of lightning flew over him towards his attacker. At the last possible second, Lestrange apparated away to the top of another pile of coins on the other side of the room, but the entire vault shook from the strength of the blast, causing that stack to shift beneath her feet. Lestrange lost her balance and fell off the pile which also buried Miss Demeanor under even more coins.

By that point, Snape had freed himself from the barbed wire and made his way towards the younger Bellatrix, clutching his still-bleeding side as he ran. Instantly, she trained her wand on him.

"Do I know you?" she asked suspiciously.

"I … don't know," he answered. "That's a surprisingly complicated question coming from you. But I was the one who freed you from confinement."

A dark cloud passed over her face. "That won't last long. They're too powerful even together. They'll lock me away again and kill you when they return."

Then, she looked Snape up and down. "Who are you and why are you here?"

Before he could answer, the girl spat out an expletive and made several violent slashes with her wand. One bodily yanked Snape to her side while another caused a wave of gold coins to rise up into the air and solidify as a shield just before a Killing Curse from Miss Demeanor could strike him dead. Snape hissed in pain and clutched his side once more.

"You don't have much time, hero!" Black shouted. "Answer the questions or get out of here!"

"I am Severus Snape. You don't know me, but your other selves do and consider me an enemy. I am here searching for information about a golden chalice that the Dark Lord gave to one of your other selves."

While he spoke, Snape slashed his own wand in concert with Black, and the two of them were barely able to maintain their protective cover against the attacks now coming from both Miss Demeanor and Lestrange.

"What? _That_ cup perhaps?" She spared a gesture towards the far side of the vault, and a chalice that did indeed resemble the Hufflepuff Cup sat atop the tallest pile of coins and artifacts in the vault.

Snape snorted. "Well, that was surprisingly easy."

"What's so important about that cup? It's not a Black artifact!"

"All I can say is that it is essential to the final destruction of the Dark Lord Voldemort!"

Black looked at him in shock. "Then what are you waiting for?! If this is my … _her_ memory palace, then obviously the _real_ cup is in my _real_ vault! You know what you needed to learn, so get the hell out of here!"

Snape hesitated. "No, I can still help you …."

"Oh Morgana's Tits!" Black exclaimed angrily before drawing back an arm and slugging Snape across the jaw as hard as possible.

Instantly, Snape came to his senses back in Bellatrix's cell in Longbottom Manor as the force of the girl's blow knocked him off his chair. At the same time, however, the paralysis that held Bellatrix in place also broke, and the insane witch screamed and flung herself towards the three wizards with her hands outstretched like claws. Luckily for them, after fourteen years in Azkaban, the dreaded Bellatrix Lestrange was nowhere near as formidable in real life as she was within her own mind. Lucius casually stunned her and then conjured a straitjacket and gag to contain her.

"Merlin's bones, Severus!" Regulus exclaimed as he carefully helped Snape up off the floor. "You look like death warmed over. What the hell has been happening all this time?!"

"I will … I will be happy for a debriefing /cough/ once I … am out of this bloody dungeon and have had proper medical treatment." Snape looked down in confusion. "Where are my shirt and coat?"

Regulus blushed slightly. "I, um, had to vanish them. they were too blood-soaked."

Snape nodded. "Then, we can add getting a hot bath and replacing my attire to medical treatment in the list of things I want _now!_ "

The three men left Bellatrix's cell and locked it solid with the woman's unconscious and bound body still on the floor. Moments later, they had made their way back up to the main floor of Longbottom Manor with Lucius levitating the barely conscious Snape and Regulus leading the way. For his part, Snape knew he needed medical treatment and rest _before_ he returned to Hogwarts, as his current condition would invite far too many questions. Still, he'd survived to bring back invaluable intelligence, and at last, it seemed his suffering was over for this day at least. Naturally, it wasn't that easy.

"SNIVELLUS!" screamed Sirius Black in a rage.

And through his blurry vision, Snape could make out the face of perhaps his most hated enemy pointing a wand at him from across the room.

" _Of course,_ " Snape thought blearily. " _It seems none of my sufferings will ever be complete while there's a Marauder around to make things worse."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT: All the Harry-centric stuff that got removed from this chapter because it undercut the tension and drama.   
> AN 1: Tentative Publication schedule.  
> Jan 12 - Upload of this chapter here and at AO3. Also, a full teaser of the next chapter will be posted on the Discord server  
> Jan 18 - Next SIB chapter on TSM's website for all Patrons.  
> Jan 25 - Next POS chapter (Ch 28) posted at TSM's website free for all Discord members.  
> Jan 28 - Ch 28 of POS posted here and at AO3.


	29. Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (finale)

**_Harry Potter  
and the Death Eater Menace_ **

**_Harry Potter and all associate characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership._ **

**_CHAPTER 27: Dreamscapes, Memories, and Nightmares (finale)_ **

****_18 December 1993  
Longbottom Manor  
4:15 p.m._

By this point, Sirius Black had been essentially trapped in Augusta Longbottom's parlor for nearly two hours with only taxidermied animals for company, and he'd nearly made himself sick on watercress sandwiches and petits fours. He was quite annoyed with Hoskins, but also with himself, as he'd gradually come to realize how the elf had manipulated him into remaining in this room. Sirius was amazed – first Dobby and now Hoskins. He would need to seriously reassess his views on house elves at this rate.

The door out of the parlor remained stubbornly closed despite all the lock-picking Charms he knew, but it turned out that even returning to Grimmauld Place was no option either. The box next to the fireplace that held the Floo powder was also spelled shut, and it, like the door exiting the parlor, was warded against him. But perhaps the most disturbing moment was when he tried looking through the keyhole to the corridor beyond and saw Hoskins just standing there watching the door with uncanny focus. Sirius didn't know if Hoskins could see  _through_  the door to watch him directly, but at this point, anything seemed possible. He was just about to admit defeat and simply call for Hoskins to ask for Floo powder so he could return home when, suddenly, there was a loud pop from the other side of the door. Sirius bent down to look through the keyhole again and confirmed that the elf had apparated away, no doubt after being summoned by Regulus or one of the others.

Then, Sirius's eyes widened, and he slapped his hand against his head.

"Merlin, Sirius, what an idiot you are!" he said to himself. "You've got a wand now! You can  _apparate_!"

He pulled his wand out and focused his mind on the place in the manor he knew the best: the room he'd stayed in for several weeks right after his liberation from Azkaban.

"Destination, Determination and Deliberation," he muttered softly while clenching his wand tightly. Then, there was the all-too-familiar sensation of being crushed from all sides, and at once, Sirius realized what a terrible mistake he'd made. This was the first time he'd attempted apparition since his incarceration twelve years before. Which meant it was the first time he'd experienced the intensely claustrophobic sensation of apparition since he'd begun his long imprisonment in a tiny miserable cell in the worst prison in the world.

Barely a second later, he rematerialized in his former bedroom only to fall to the ground in an absolute panic and terror. He looked wildly around the room, but his resurgent trauma colored his perceptions. One second, he was in an empty yet familiar bedroom, but one seen reflected in a funhouse mirror, constantly twisting and moving. In the next second, everything around him darkened to the color of grey stone, and he was back in his cell waiting for the Dementors to return. Desperately, he crawled over to the door (whenever he was able to perceive a door rather than metal bars), and with a supreme effort, he pulled it open and fell outside … only to find himself in one of Azkaban's labyrinthine corridors. Slowly, he pulled himself up off the floor to stagger down the hall, shaking in his delirium.

"Focus, Black! Gotta … gotta keep movin'! Or the D…dementors'll get ya!  _... HARRY!_ " He picked up speed as he staggered almost drunkenly down the hallway, occasionally stumbling and bouncing off the walls and furniture. From somewhere behind, he thought he heard movement approaching. Terrified, he held up his wand.

" ** _EX… EXPECTO … PAT…PATRONUM!_** " he cried out, but no Patronus appeared. The cold chill of a Dementor washed over him. Not a real Dementor, for there were none nearby, but the sense memory of one (not that Sirius could possibly tell the difference at this point). He picked up his pace, desperate to flee the tormentors that existed only in his mind. Soon, the sensation of the Dementor chill was joined by voices drawn from Sirius's twelve  _years_  of nightmares.

" _I'll kill you for what you've done, Traitor!_ " screamed James from inside a painting on the wall of Longbottom Manor.

" _You were never my friend, were you, Black?!_ " growled a suit of armor that Sirius saw as Remus in mid-transformation.

" _What a fool you were to never see the truth about me, Sirius!_ " giggled a floral arrangement on a nearby side table that Sirius perceived as a certain Norwegian brown rat.

Desperate and delirious, Sirius Black made his way through the dark sinister corridors of his own mind.

**_Just a few minutes earlier …_ **

Carefully, Regulus and Lucius maneuvered the semi-conscious Snape up out of the dungeon, after locking up the unconscious Bellatrix in her cell, gagged and bound with a straitjacket. Once back on the main floor of Longbottom Manor, Regulus called out for Hoskins.

"Hoskins is here, Mr. Regulus, and reports that your brother remains trapped in the parlor for the nonce." Then, the elf noticed the injuries to Snape. "Blimey!" he exclaimed.

"Hoskins, please fetch us any medicinal potions in the house. Mr. Snape will need them."

Hoskins stiffened his back with military precision at the order. "It will be done, Mr. Regulus." But then, just as the elf was about to pop away, he suddenly flinched and gave an annoyed grimace. "Grrr. Hoskins regrets that he spoke prematurely, Mr. Regulus. Hoskins perceives that Mr. Sirius has apparated out of the parlor where Hoskins had detained him and into the residential wing."

Regulus sighed. "Never mind him for now, Hoskins. We'll deal with him if it becomes an issue."

Hoskins bowed and popped away, as Lucius and Regulus continued to levitate the semi-conscious Snape across the room. But the "issue" arose sooner than Regulus anticipated, for at that moment, Sirius came barreling around the corner. He skidded to a stop and stared at the trio in mindless terror. The Slytherins could not have known it, but from Sirius's perspective, it wasn't three wizards before him, but rather two Dementors … Dementors that were somehow under the command of a healthy twenty-year-old Severus Snape who sneered hatefully at him as he urged the Dementors to move in for the kill.

" _Of course,_ " Sirius thought through his mental fog. " _That bastard has wanted me dead since we were kids! And now he's brought DEMENTORS to do the job for him!"_

"SNIVELLUS!" screamed Sirius Black in a rage as he fired a Cutting Curse towards the trio. Luckily it went wide, but it did manage to slice through the rope that held up an expensive chandelier. It promptly fell to the floor with a resounding crash. Regulus threw up a protective shield which Snape and Lucius hid behind.

"Was that another priceless antique?" Regulus asked, more afraid of Lady Augusta's ire now than his brother's curses.

"Regency era," Lucius said while bolstering their shield. "Expensive but reparable so long as the crystals are largely intact."

" ** _INCENDIO!_** " Sirius bellowed, and in response a gout of fire shot out of his wand wildly around the room.

"… and not melted into slag," Lucius added ruefully.

"Dammit, Sirius!" Regulus snarled before leaping from behind the shield and rolling across the floor faster than his brother could follow. " ** _EXPELLIARMUS!_** " And just like that, the battle was ended. Sirius's wand went flying, and the man himself got knocked back ten feet to land on the floor in a trembling heap.

Regulus moved in his brother's direction to check him out while Lucius attended to Severus. By the time he reached Sirius, the older Black was shaking violently.

" _Please, b-b-believe me!"_ Sirius cried out through tears. " _I'm innocent! I'm innocent! I'm innocent!_ "

"You should stun him," croaked the barely-conscious Snape. "He's in the midst of a stress-induced Dementor flashback. Stun him before he swallows his own tongue or something. Then feed him two Calming Draughts and a Draught of Peace. They're in my bag."

Regulus looked at Snape in surprise and then immediately stunned his brother into unconsciousness.

"And if I feed him those, that will fix him?" he asked.

Snape barked out a laugh. "Oh no, that will just get him through the night. But if his flashbacks to Azkaban are that severe, then the psychic and physical damage will likely grow worse and worse with each successive trigger event until he dies of an aneurysm or heart attack." He smiled cruelly. "That or kills himself in despair, I suppose."

Regulus looked horrified at Snape's callous remarks. "There … there must be  _something_  that can be done?!"

The Potions Master snorted. "You have no good options, Regulus. Even if he could be persuaded of your brother's innocence, Ted Tonks is still in recovery and cannot attend to him. You can hardly take him to St. Mungo's to see a Healer  _not_  a part of our little conspiracy. And before you even dare to ask – no, I will not lift a finger on his behalf. I recommend you take Sirius Black home, make him as comfortable as possible, and  _wait for the end_."

Then Snape gave a cruel smile. "I for one know that  _I'm_  looking forward to a funeral."

**_Caretaker Sturgeon's Office  
4:20 p.m._ **

"Open wide," said Remus Lupin with a cheery smile. Jim Potter grumbled and then opened his mouth as wide as he could before Lupin cast a low-level Scourgify inside. It wasn't  _painful_ , but it was profoundly unpleasant. Ron Weasley, who was watching the proceedings with a broad grin, had warned him that using the Charm in this manner was the magical equivalent of a Muggle parent washing out a child's mouth with soap as a punishment for naughty language, a punishment he'd suffered himself on occasion. Lily Potter was equally amused, as she recalled using the spell on the Marauders back in their school days to curb them of their tendency towards sexual innuendo after they finally developed an interest in girls.

Remus handed Jim a glass of water which the boy swished around in his mouth before spitting it out into a conjured bucket.

"Blech!" he said while making a face. "Is this really necessary?"

"It is if you don't want to spend the next two weeks with a Mandrake leaf stuck to the roof of your mouth for nothing," Lupin said authoritatively. "This approach cuts the amount of time you'll need to keep the leaf in your mouth in half, but it won't work if there's  _any_  particulate matter in your mouth when the leaf is affixed. And we all  _saw_  you take a second helping of treacle tart at lunch today."

"It wasn't my fault!" Jim said almost offendedly. "Hermione doesn't eat desserts any more, and it would have gone to waste if  _no one_  ate it."

Ron laughed. "Yeah, whereas every dessert Hermione turns down that  _isn't_  treacle tart usually gets eaten by me without a word of complaint from you."

Meanwhile, Remus turned to his desk and  _carefully_  levitated a Mandrake leaf from a small box with a gesture of his wand. At his direction, Jim opened his mouth once more, and Remus floated the small leaf inside before affixing it to the roof of his mouth with a Sticking Charm. Jim made another face as he adjusted to the leaf's presence. It didn't taste nearly as bad as the soapy Scourgify, but it tasted rather unpleasantly of  _sour apples._  He remarked as such to Remus, who smiled once more at the boy's expression.

"Yes, I'm afraid that's just part of the process. I hope you don't mind the taste of sour apples too much, Jim, because for the next fortnight,  _everything_  you eat or drink will taste of it. It's tolerable with pork and citrus fruits. Less so with things like chocolate or other desserts, I'm afraid."

"So no more treacle tart until after Christmas!" Ron said with a laugh.

"How does this differ from the normal process?" asked the ever-curious Lily. Remus had finally come clean and revealed the Secret of his identity to her after the Hogsmeade attack. As Remus and Albus had anticipated, James had mentioned his suspicions about "Malachi Sturgeon" to her and asked her to keep an eye on the mysterious caretaker. Rather than put up with Lily spying on his every move, Remus elected to show the paper Dumbledore had created that conveyed the Secret to both her and to Ron. If for no other reason, her aid would be essential in diverting James so he didn't notice the tell-tale scent of Mandrake on his son's breath, a scent Prongs would remember all too well.

"The technique that James, Sirius, and Peter used requires the aspiring Animagus to keep a Mandrake leaf under his tongue for a full month. This frequently makes it difficult to talk and also increases the likelihood of the leaf being damaged inside the mouth. The technique Jim is using is the one practiced by the Animagi of the Uagadou School in Africa. It cuts the time needed for the Mandrake leaf in half … at the cost of giving the Animagus breath that suspiciously – and obnoxiously – smells of apples at all times. That's not a problem in Africa where Animagery is not only legal but commonplace. It's more of an issue here in Wizarding Britain, where unregistered Animagery is highly illegal. Especially when your father is both a secret Animagus and the chief law enforcement officer for the whole country. But the alternative was to do it during the school term, and there's no way Minerva McGonagall would have missed the scent of a Mandrake leaf. Unlike Prongs, McGonagall is blessed with a feline sense of smell."

"It's a wonder she never caught James and the other two when they were going through this,' Lily said. "I suppose they must have done it during the summer."

"Mmm," Lupin said while studying the Mandrake leaf now stuck inside Jim's mouth and thinking about how to change the subject.

**_Mad-Eye Moody's Room at the Three Broomsticks4:40 p.m._ **

"So that's it," Moody said to Harry Potter. "That completes my collection of memories of people who fought Voldemort and made it to the ten-second mark. Between now and our next get-together, I want three feet of parchment on what they all did right, what they could have done better, and what a Third Year student with your admittedly slightly-above-average skills could have done to escape in those situations."

"We still haven't seen your own  _personal_  memory of fighting Voldemort, Mr. Moody," Harry said innocently.

"And  _we_  are not going to, Potter," the man replied gruffly. "I made that clear."

"I'm guessing it's because you have some incredibly awesome fighting technique that you don't want to share because you always like to have one trick no one else knows in your back pocket."

"You can make whatever guesses you like, Potter, but I'm still not sharing that memory. Now, I'm going out to use the loo. While I'm gone, start packing up your pensieve and thinking about what you've seen. If you have any final questions about anti-Voldemort tactics, you can ask 'em when I get back."

With that, Moody stumped out of his room and down the hall. Harry added to his notes and then moved to the table to shrink the pensieve down for travel. But as his wand rested above the bowl, he paused, his attention drawn to the vials neatly resting in a row along the side. He'd seen nine memories that day, but there were ten vials. And with his Occlumency-powered recall, he knew  _exactly_ which one he had  _not_  witnessed yet. Harry glanced over to the door. Based on experience with the man's bathroom habits gleaned over months of tutoring, he knew he had at least ten minutes before Moody returned. After a few seconds of contemplation, Harry reached for the tenth vial of memories and dumped them into the pensieve. Excited at the thought of seeing his mentor in action at the height of his power and skill, Harry leaned forward and passed into the memory.

**_1 January 1981  
The Memory of Alastor Moody_ **

The thing that most shocked Harry was how  _young_  Moody looked. Harry, of course, had researched Alastor Moody's life and career. And if this was a memory of his duel with Voldemort, then the man was only thirty-five and had been awarded an Order of Merlin just a few months earlier for his role in the siege of Wilkes Manor and the death of the Death Eater known as Mr. Toymaker. As the memory came fully into focus, Harry found himself in the man's bedroom just as he was waking up for the day. The boy wasn't sure, but he suspected Moody was hungover. More disturbingly, as far as Harry was concerned, Moody apparently slept in the nude, as the boy quickly deduced from the pile of clothes on the floor next to the bed, clothes which included some old-fashioned men's underwear and what appeared to be a festive New Year's Eve Party hat. Embarrassed to have barged in on his mentor under these circumstances, Harry abashedly focused his gaze on  _everything_   _else_  in the room as a healthy, young, and fully-naked Alastor Moody (who still had both legs and both eyes) sat up in bed to stretch his arms.

Aside from embarrassment, Harry's primary response to the scene was confusion. He had expected to be dumped into a pitched battle between Moody and the Dark Lord. Had Moody brought the wrong memory today? Shaking his head, Harry moved over to a nearby dresser while behind him, Moody reached down for the clothes on the floor. On the dresser were several moving pictures, only one of which included Alastor Moody, locked in the embrace of a lovely young woman. She was in several other pictures as well, along with what looked like family members. Suddenly, Harry realized the truth of the situation and blushed. This was not Moody's room or house. It belonged to a woman with whom Moody had come home after a New Year's Eve party. Now even more embarrassed, Harry prepared himself to exit the memory when a shirtless Moody opened the door and called out almost playfully.

"Vicki? Where's my shirt?"

After a few seconds, a woman's voice replied. "A…a…Alastor?" A chill ran down Harry's back. The woman's voice wasn't playful. It was terrified.

Moody must have reached the same conclusion, for with a silent twitch of his hand, the auror's wand flew to his grasp. He tapped his head with his wand to cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself. To Harry's surprise, he could still see Moody (though he seemed slightly translucent) since this was Moody's own memory of these events. Then, the auror cast a Silencing Charm on himself before slipping out the door. Harry followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Halfway down, Moody froze, as did Harry behind him.

The stairs led down to an open living room. There was a woman (Vicki, presumably) wearing what Harry guessed was Moody's missing shirt. She was stuck to a wall with tears streaming down her face. And she wasn't alone, for Harry counted another four people also stuck to the walls of the living room: two men (one of whom was wearing a heavily-damaged Auror's coat), another woman, and a young boy perhaps no more than seven. All them appeared to be under a Silencing charm, and all of them seemed to be in mortal terror.

Understandably so, since Lord Voldemort himself was also in the room, calmly seated in an easy chair reading a Daily Prophet issue whose headline praised Moody for his handling of the Wilkes affair.

"Good morning, Auror Moody," Voldemort said without looking up. "I trust you slept well?"

For a full second, Moody stood paralyzed. And then, he pointed his wand towards Voldemort and screamed " ** _AVADA KEDAVRA!_** " Harry was taken aback. Moody was legendary among the Aurors of the last war for having never used the Killing Curse. And it showed. Compared to all the Avada Kedavras that Harry had seen the Dark Lord cast in the prior memories, Moody's was painfully slow, and the color, while green, looked noticeably paler than usual.

Voldemort twitched his wand effortlessly, and the uniformed Auror who'd been stuck to the wall flew across the room into the path of the curse. The Auror didn't die because Moody's curse wasn't strong enough. But he  _screamed_  from the pain as blood shot from his mouth and green sparks danced across his body.

"MIKE!" Moody yelled in anguish. Then, he stabbed the banister with his wand, and it shattered and flew towards Voldemort in a hail of wooden stakes. The dark wizard shifted the position of his human shield, but then the stakes changed course to fly around him. Seemingly amused by Moody's ingenuity, Voldemort quickly whipped his wand in a complicated pattern before the stakes could strike, and instantly, they reversed themselves in mid-air and flew back towards Moody. With a grunt, he leaped to safety, but one of the stakes drove through his calf. He fell to the floor with another scream, this time of pain. Voldemort rose from the chair and glided over towards him, the auror falling to the ground behind him as a weeping wreck. Desperately, Moody tried to curse the Dark Lord, but with a silent flick of Voldemort's wand, Moody was disarmed.

"Tsk, tsk, Auror Moody," he said in a silky voice. "You have something lodged in your leg, it seems. Let me help you with that." Voldemort hissed a word that Harry didn't recognize, and in response, a heavy ax made of an emerald green magical force materialized out of thin air and  _sliced Moody's leg off just below the knee!_

Harry staggered back in horror as Moody roared in pain and fury. He'd been expecting a duel for the ages because he knew Moody had survived an encounter with Voldemort. He'd never expected to learn that Moody only survived because Voldemort had been  _toying with him_.

Blood spurted wildly from Moody's leg stump until Voldemort cast another spell instantly cauterizing the wound. "There," he said almost mildly. "I've stopped the bleeding, though I fear that leg will never accept any sort of magical regeneration. Nor any sort of magical prosthesis that doesn't cause you intense pain. But you're a strong man, Auror Moody. I'm sure you can handle a little pain … for the rest of your life."

'You … bastard!" Moody spat. "Kill me and get it over with! I know that's why you're here! But leave the others out of it!"

"Ah, yes!" Voldemort exclaimed as he gestured towards the terrified figures on the wall. "Let us introduce our honored guests. Your lover, Victoria Manford. Your fellow Auror and partner of many years, Michael Proctor. And lastly, your younger brother, Aethon Moody; his wife, Adrienne Carlyle Moody; and their adorable moppet of a son, Nestor Moody. The very last of the Moody line, am I right?"

Voldemort sneered at the stricken man. "I'm told you have many friends, Auror Moody, but these, I believe, are the only people you  _love_. Today's lesson, Auror Moody, will be to teach you the futility and pointlessness of that puerile emotion. I hope I prove a worthy instructor."

"Why, you bastard, why? I suppose you consider Mike an enemy soldier like me. But what's the point in killing a bunch of civilians?! Revenge for me killing Wilkes? Don't tell me you actually  _cared_  for that lunatic?!"

Voldemort laughed. "Cared? Of course not. No Dark Lord worthy of the name has  _friends_  worth caring about!" Then, he darted forward and knelt by Moody, his wand under the man's chin.

"But there  _are_  people we  _value_ , Moody. Men and women of true genius whose importance to the cause is inestimable. Erasmus Wilkes was such a genius."

"He was a bloody mass-murdering psychopath!"

Voldemort blinked in bemusement. "Your point? Whatever deficiencies you saw in his mental health do not change the fact that  _he was valuable to me_! By killing him, you have set my plans back more than anyone else still alive,  _including_   _Albus Dumbledore himself._  I would congratulate you, but unfortunately, your actions compel me to deliver a harsher response."

"Killing my loved ones, you mean? And then what? After you've murdered the people I care about, are you gonna blind me like poor Nancy Kent?"

Voldemort sniffed. "I rarely repeat myself when I can avoid it, at least not with my grander gestures." He tilted his head as he studied Moody's face. "No, I think I'll just take one eye. That way, you'll still have another eye in whose reflection others will see how haunted you are by the memories of this day."

Then, the Dark Lord rose to survey the room. "And you're mistaken in my intentions, Auror Moody. I am not here to kill  _anyone_. Or at least, not unless  _persuaded_  to do so."

"… what?" Moody said slowly. Nearby, Harry put his hands over his mouth. Somehow, his strange Legilimency powers had given him insight once more like a kaleidoscope clicking into place. But the image revealed this time was both horrific and sickening. Somehow, he  _knew_  what Voldemort was going to do next.

"I will not kill any of these people.  _Instead, I will drive them utterly mad_ with the Cruciatus Curse.  _But_ , I shall do so with such skill that they will live on, unaware of their surroundings and trapped in their own bodies _, while still experiencing the effects of the Cruciatus for the rest of their lives!_ " Voldemort gave a sickening laugh while Moody gaped at the Dark Lord in horror and helpless fury.

"That will be the fate of all your loved ones unless …  _unless_  you can persuade me to grant them a more merciful fate, if no less a permanent one. The decision is yours, Auror Moody. Shall I curse these people to agonizing madness? Or will you beg me – truly beg me with absolute sincerity – to  _kill them instead?_  That is the choice I offer you. That is the price you shall pay for depriving me of one of my most valued servants. And when we are done, perhaps your fellow Aurors will learn from your mistakes. Mistakes for which these good people will pay the price."

By now, Moody was practically babbling as he begged Voldemort not to do this. Meanwhile, Harry Potter stood utterly transfixed, unable to move. Part of him desperately wanted to flee this memory. But another part – his Gryffindor part, he assumed – demanded that he stay and watch, because having intruded this far into a scene of such depravity, he felt a strange obligation to bear witness on behalf of these poor victims.

Voldemort looked around at his hostages before his gaze returned to Victoria Manford's tear-stained face. He tilted his head quizzically, and instinctively, Harry knew he was studying the woman with Legilimency. Then, he cast a wordless Charm on the woman that caused faint runes to appear in the air over her. He laughed viciously and turned back to Moody.

"What a delightful turn of events! Tell me, Auror Moody. Did you have any idea that your lover is  _pregnant_!"

That finally broke Harry's paralysis. He choked out a sob of horror and took a step back with the intention of exiting the pensieve. But before he could, he jumped in surprise as a beefy hand clamped down on his shoulder and he was bodily  _pulled_  out instead. After a moment's disorientation, Harry found himself back in Moody's room and staring up into the face of the man himself. For once, Moody's fake eye wasn't spinning wildly. It was focused on him with an exact and frightening precision.

"Well, Potter," Moody said in a bitterly cold voice. "Any questions?"

Harry's jaw moved but no coherent sounds emerged. His eyes were wet with tears. "I … I…."

Moody silently gestured with his wand, and the memory flowed out back into its container. Then, he tapped the bowl which shrank down to pocket-size.

"Get out," he said without looking at the boy.

Harry wiped his eyes and pocketed the pensieve. Then, he pulled the Invisibility Cloak over his head and opened the door. He paused for a moment at the threshold and looked at Moody whose back was to him. He opened his mouth to speak, but still no words would come. Finally, he gave up and left the room.

After all, what could he possibly say.

**_Twenty minutes later …_ **

Dejected and still shame-faced by what he'd done to his own mentor, Harry made his way down the tunnel that led from Honeydukes back into the castle only to be reminded that things could always get worse. On the secret doorway on the tunnel side he found, of all things, a scrap of parchment affixed to the door with Spello-tape. And to his amazement, there was a message scrawled on it for  _him._

_Potter –_

_When you return, come see me about your detention.  
Unless you return after curfew, in which case, see me about your suspension._

_\- Scrimgeour_

Harry closed his eyes and shook his head as he wondered how this day that had started off so well had ended up such a disaster.

" _Oh yeah_ ," he thought to himself. " _It was because I'm an arrogant git_."

After checking the Map to make sure no one was on the other side, Harry opened the passage door and entered Hogwarts. He took a brief side-trip to return Jim's cloak before heading up to the DADA classroom. Then, he paused to adjust his tie and primp his hair before rapping on the door three times.

"Enter," said Rufus Scrimgeour on the other side. As Harry entered, the man gave a curious smile. "Well, Slytherin Potter, I must say this is a surprise. My note did not specify, but I was expecting your brother to have been the one to read it. Sneaking off to Hogsmeade for candy and a look at the latest Quidditch paraphernalia seems more of a Gryffindor move."

Harry shrugged. "It wasn't for candy or Quidditch, sir. I had a previously-scheduled lesson with my tutor in Hogsmeade, and it would not have been possible to reschedule it during the holidays."

Scrimgeour's eyebrows shot up. "And who is your tutor, dare I ask?"

Harry hesitated but then decided it wasn't exactly a secret. "Alastor Moody."

"Is he really? How extraordinary. I must say that it wounds me to learn that my DADA classes are so unengaging that you feel the need to take extra tuition to compensate for it."

Harry winced. "Not at all, Professor. I've found all my teachers here at Hogwarts to be excellent instructors." The name  _Binns_  flashed across his mind, but he ignored it. "My lessons with Mr. Moody are merely on … specialized topics."

"With Alastor?" Scrimgeour laughed. "I imagine they would be. Still, that leaves me with a dilemma. The Headmaster has forbidden travel to Hogsmeade by those who lack the power to defend themselves from Dementors, which includes you. I can, of course, pass along my discovery of your transgression to the Deputy Headmistress or your Head of House and let them determine appropriate punishment. Or we keep it just between the two of us. What's your preference?"

The boy hesitated and actually dilated for a few seconds. He wondered what Scrimgeour's game was, because he was certain it was about more than disciplinary infractions. Then, he wondered if Scrimgeour could tell he was dilating, and he instantly let it lapse.

"What punishment would  _you_  propose, sir?"

Scrimgeour looked up at the ceiling as if he were just now considering the matter and had not already determined his proposed punishment hours earlier.

"One-hundred lines. ' _I will not violate safety rules put into place for my own wellbeing._ ' After which, we will spend two hours in academic discussion about  _this_."

As he spoke, he held up his personal copy of the Sirius Black trial transcript. Harry blinked. He'd spent weeks poring over the transcript to no end. Had he not heard Sirius's side of the story from his own mouth, he'd have found the document completely plausible. Of course, plausible was not the same as believable. Harry sensed there was  _something_  wrong with the transcript – and possibly something that Scrimgeour had also found suspicious – but he was unable to identify it himself.

"I would be happy to submit to that punishment, Professor Scrimgeour. After dinner?"

"Actually, I was going to propose having a house elf bring dinner for us so you could work through and finish early. I know you're leaving for the holidays tomorrow. Have you even started packing?"

Harry blushed. "Err, no actually. I suppose it would be fine to eat here so we could get done at a reasonable hour. One-hundred lines, you said?"

Scrimgeour nodded, and Harry set himself to the required work. To Harry's mild surprise, Scrimgeour summoned Tweak, the house elf charged with overseeing House Slytherin. Harry steadfastly ignored the elf and hoped Scrimgeour wouldn't notice that they'd interacted before. Tweak was no help in that regard, as he repeatedly glanced over at Harry with obvious disdain. After receiving Scrimgeour's instructions, the house elf popped away, and Scrimgeour sat down to review his own copy of the transcript and make some notes in the margins.

About an hour later, Tweak returned with a large wicker basket from which he produced several platters and bowls of food, along with plates, goblets, silverware, and a large pitcher of pumpkin juice.

"How are you coming along, Potter?" the professor asked.

"Almost done sir. About fifteen more lines."

"Hmm. Well, would you mind if I went ahead and ate? I skipped lunch today."

"Not at all, sir," Harry said courteously. "Please, don't wait on my account."

Scrimgeour limped over to the table where Tweak had left their repast and puttered about for a moment before preparing a plate and goblet for himself. About five minutes later, Harry placed his parchment on Scrimgeour's desk and then fixed a plate for himself. The two ate in companionable conversation for about twenty minutes. Scrimgeour asked how Moody was, and Harry gave an evasive response that the older man thankfully didn't press.

After they'd finished eating, Tweak returned to clear the table, though at Scrimgeour's insistence, he left the pitcher of pumpkin juice, for which Harry was grateful. He'd suddenly found himself unaccountably thirsty, most likely because Scrimgeour kept the DADA classroom on the warm side. Their bellies full, the two began a lively discussion of the Black transcript.

It was a rather long transcript considering it consisted almost entirely of a single witness under Veritaserum. At the start of trial, three sworn affidavits were introduced: one each from James and Lily Potter, and a third sealed affidavit from "Witness 3." All three affidavits confirmed that Sirius Black had been the Potters' Secret Keeper and that he'd revealed the Secret to "Dark Lord #1" which was how court proceedings of the day referred to You-Know-Who. Next came an expert's report submitted by an anonymous Unspeakable establishing to a legal certainty that it was impossible to compel a Secret Keeper to reveal the Secret they kept except voluntarily.

This was deemed sufficient to hold Sirius Black for questioning under Veritaserum. And under that potion's effects, Sirius admitted to having been a Death Eater for just over a year. He was not yet marked but would have been soon as reward for leading Voldemort to the Potters. The interrogation did not delve into  _why_  James Potter's longtime best friend had become a Death Eater and a traitor, but it did dig quite ferociously into what he'd done  _as_  a Death Eater. Among the individuals who he'd put under the Imperius Curse and compelled to serve Voldemort were Lucius Malfoy, Tiberius Nott, Andrew Parkinson, Gregory Goyle Sr., Wilbur Crabbe and dozens of other equally respectable wizards. His testimony also went into lurid detail about what crimes he'd compelled those respectable wizards to perform, crimes including felony Muggle-baiting, murder, arson, and rape. At one point, he alluded to a deep personal hatred of Slytherins as a motive for trying to destroy the reputations of so many upstanding graduates of that house.

"So," Scrimgeour asked. "What do you think about Black's confession? Seems rather thorough, does it not?"

Harry took another sip of juice to stall while he tried to come up with an answer. "Thorough, yes. But isn't it unusual for someone to be sent to Azkaban just for their own testimony under Veritaserum? What about memory alterations?"

"The witness's chair in the Wizengamot courtroom has the same properties as a Remembrall. It will instantly reveal whether the witness has been subjected to any memory-altering spells. Likewise, both your parents would have been asked to handle Remembrall's before signing a magical affidavit."

"True. Still there must be ... something …." Harry finished rather lamely.

"Must there? Most people would think this testimony remarkably straight forward." Scrimgeour leaned forward. "Tell me, Slytherin Potter. You obviously have doubts about Black's conviction. Why?"

Harry visibly struggled with the question. He wished he could simply say " _Well, I've met, Black and I believe his story._" He took another slow sip and licked his lips cautiously.

"What do you know about the events from my First Year involving Professor Quirrell and the Mirror of Erised?"

Scrimgeour leaned back slowly in his chair. "A provocative change of topic. I know the basics, I think. Quirrel was, in some capacity, an agent of You-Know-Who, and Albus arranged for him to come to Hogwarts as DADA professor in order to lure You-Know-Who into a trap of some kind."

Harry frowned. "If I may ask, sir, why do you call him You-Know-Who? I know Professor Dumbledore encourages people to use his real name."

"Yes, except it's  _not_  his real name, is it. And due to the political situation and the limitations imposed by the Fidelius, we can't exactly call him Tom. Anyway, I generally call him You-Know-Who for two reasons. One is that there were several relatively plausible rumors during the last war indicating that he had some sort of sensory powers pertaining to the unauthorized use of the name Voldemort. The exact scope of that power is nebulous – it seems absurd that he should instantly know whenever someone says his name in a derogatory way and be instantly able to apparate himself there and revenge himself, but there were enough people who believed such twaddle to make it socially unacceptable to say  _Voldemort_  in public."

Harry nodded. "And the other reason?"

"I got tired of cowardly cretins shrieking in terror every time I said the name in front of them."

"Fair enough. Anyway,  _You-Know-Who_  currently exists in some kind of spirit form, and he was physically possessing Professor Quirrell. On the last night he was here … I sort of got into a conversation with him. I was stalling for time to keep him from killing me and some of my friends, and while I was, he said something about the person who betrayed my family that didn't make sense, so I asked him when Sirius Black entered his service. He had no idea what I was talking about."

"My word, Slytherin Potter. You  _do_  lead an interesting life. And from that brief exchange, you conclude that this official document of the Wizengamot, signed by three esteemed if anonymous judges and countersigned by the official Scribe of the Wizengamot, is  _fake_?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond but then got sidetracked. "How can the judges be  _esteemed_  if they're also  _anonymous_?"

Scrimgeour smirked. "The Death Eater Laws. The Wizengamot got tired of its judges being assassinated every time they publicly ruled against Death Eaters. So, it established the Blind Panel, a group of twelve highly-esteemed wizards and witches who would agree to serve as judges in all Death Eater-related trials. The Wizengamot picked them in a closed session with every Lord and Lady in attendance swearing a rather stringent secrecy oath to never reveal who served on the panel. Until You-Know-Who's defeat was confirmed, every single trial involving an accused Death Eater was heard by three of those judges, randomly chosen, in a closed courtroom with Dementors serving as unofficial bailiffs. Witnesses for and against the defendant would be subject to perception-filtering spells that prevented them from recognizing any of the judges."

Scrimgeour paused. "Mind you, that didn't stop some of them from getting murdered anyway.  _Everyone_  in the Wizengamot who wasn't a collaborator or worse was treated as a target by the Death Eaters."

"And even after all these years, no one knows the names of any of the judges?!" Harry asked.

"Well, we know one of them was Albus Dumbledore. He publicly revealed himself as one of the judges and also vouched for the other eleven, despite his own personal misgivings about the Death Eater Laws, in order to reassure the public that the Blind Panel would be neither a rubber stamp for Barty Crouch nor a corrupted body that would let Death Eaters escape justice." He gestured at the top of the front page of the transcript. "These four sigils here are actually the occluded names of the three judges who heard Black's case along with the official seal of the Scribe testifying that the transcript is a true-and-accurate copy of what was actually said."

He leaned back in his chair again. "So, I ask you once more – do you have any reason to doubt the authenticity of this document?"

Harry grimaced. "Only a gut feeling, sir … though one I suspect you share, perhaps?"

Scrimgeour smiled at the boy. "Tell me, Slytherin Potter. I gather you were raised –  _poorly_ , I'm told – by Muggles. Are you familiar with the Muggle fictional character known as  _Sherlock Holmes_?"

Harry ignored the dig at the Dursleys, though he did wonder how much Scrimgeour really knew about his upbringing. "I'm … familiar with Sherlock Holmes, but I never had chance to read any of the books."

"I highly recommend them. A Halfblood friend introduced me to them when I was your age. It was a life-changing event."

Harry perked up at Scrimgeour's heartfelt recommendation of Muggle literature. "Life-changing, sir?"

"Oh yes! You see, Potter, like you, I am a natural Legilimens. Like you, my Legilimency manifests as a preternatural deductive genius. But when I was a lowly Third Year, I honestly didn't know what I was. I had not heard the terms 'Legilimency' or 'deductive genius.' I didn't understand that I had a special ability, and more importantly, I didn't appreciate what it meant that others  _did not_  have that ability. That people might think it strange or off-putting or even infuriating when I would blurt out things that others meant to keep secret but which were perfectly obvious to me. And then, I discovered that the Muggles had a fictional character – an internationally famous and greatly  _admired_  fictional character – who could do the things I did. It was … astonishing."

Scrimgeour shook his head.

"But I digress. The point about Sherlock Holmes I wanted to make actually refers to one specific story which I found quite instructive when I read it.  _The Adventure of Silver Blaze_ , in which the Great Detective must solve a robbery and an apparent murder, and he constantly baffles those around him by continually suggesting that the most interesting facet of the case was ' _the curious incident of the dog in the night-time_.' I find that story to be quite relevant to the issue of the Black transcript."

Harry absorbed that and hoped his expression wasn't as clueless as he felt. "So … what  _was_  the dog doing in the night-time?" he finally asked.

"Nothing," Scrimgeour. "The dog did nothing during the night."

Harry stared at the man. "… okay?"

Scrimgeour sighed as if disappointed in his student's reasoning abilities. "The dog was a guard dog, Potter, and the fact that it did not bark during the night meant that the criminal was someone known to it – the dog's owner, in fact – rather than an intruder. I learned an important criminological lesson from that story. Namely, sometimes, the glaring absence of a clue is itself a clue." He leaned forward to stare intently into Harry's eyes. "So, with that in mind, I ask you: What  _should_  be in Sirius Black's confession that  _isn't there_?"

Harry blinked a few times and then closed his eyes in concentration. After a few seconds, he took another swig of pumpkin juice with his brow still furrowed in thought. It took him nearly a minute until his eyes shot open wide and he gasped out the answer.

"The trial court asked Sirius broadly to describe every crime he performed on Voldemort's behalf, and he listed a bunch of influential accused Death Eaters who he claimed to have put under the Imperius. But he was an Auror by this point with access to the whole Ministry, and yet he never tried to Imperius any fellow Aurors or other government officials. And until Halloween of 1981, he never took the opportunity to kill my father, even though James Potter was a public symbol of opposition to Voldemort."

"Well done, Potter, though the gap in testimony is wider than you know. Are you familiar with the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Vaguely. Wasn't it some anti-Voldemort group put together by the Headmaster during the War?"

"It was, indeed. And Black, along with your father, were important members of it.  _And he never tried to subvert it either_. He didn't even try to spy on it or the Ministry. But he did find time to engage in incredibly complicated schemes to get close to Wizengamot members who normally did not travel in his social circle at all."

Harry leaned back in his chair excitedly. "It's fake. It has to be. But how could someone have done this given your description of how the judging panels work? And why Sirius?"

"Who says its just Black? There were four other people liberated from Azkaban along with him. Could any of them also be innocent?"

"I seriously doubt it, from what I've heard," Harry scoffed.

"Well, then, why  _were_ those other four taken from Azkaban?" Scrimgeour asked in apparent bafflement. "What other purpose incidental to freeing the innocent Sirius Black could have justified liberating those four?"

Harry nodded excitedly. "It was because they were Voldemort's true inner circle. They were the only ones who might have known any useful details about Voldemort's Horcruxes…."

Harry stopped suddenly in mid-sentence and looked directly into Scrimgeour's eyes. The man smirked at him in victory. Then, he looked down at the goblet of pumpkin juice still in his hand, the one he'd been drinking from all night but which somehow never quenched his thirst.

"You put Veritaserum in my juice," he said simply.

"Yes," Scrimgeour answered calmly.

Harry nodded. "And you never thought it was Jim who sneaked into Hogsmeade. You arranged for this detention specifically for me tonight, and you assigned me lines so I'd be distracted  _while you put Veritaserum in my juice_."

"Yes on all counts," the older man said once more. "It was most convenient of you to commit a disciplinary infraction today worthy of detention. You have remarkable self-discipline and poise for a son of James Potter. My fallback plan was to manipulate one of your peers into picking a fistfight with you after the Christmas Break."

"Well, I guess it's good it didn't come to that," Harry said sarcastically. "Isn't it, I dunno,  _dangerous_  to use Veritaserum like this? And especially on a minor?"

The man scoffed. "Please, Harry, I am  _quite_  experienced with this. It was only one drop, diluted by a whole pitcher of juice. Enough to loosen your tongue without presenting any health risks."

A beat passed. " _WHY_  DID YOU PUT VERITASERUM IN MY JUICE?!" Harry asked in utter consternation.

Scrimgeour laughed at the outburst. "Well, I suppose you can really blame Albus for it. He made me promise not to use Legilimency on my students, so this was really the only way."

Harry looked around the room in dismay. First, he'd ruined his relationship with Mad-Eye Moody. And now, he'd exposed Regulus's conspiracy to a former Chief Auror. At least he hadn't exposed Regulus himself – the conspirators had all sworn secrecy oaths, and the watered down Veritaserum wasn't strong enough to overcome them regarding anything specifically included in the oath (which unfortunately did not include the Horcruxes). Harry wondered suddenly if thirteen was too young to be sent to Azkaban.

"What happens now?" he asked sullenly.

"That rather depends on how you answer my next few questions. What is your agenda towards Voldemort?"

Harry looked up at the man almost defiantly. "We want to utterly destroy him. In addition to Tom Riddle's diary, we've already destroyed another Horcrux and have leads for a third."

Scrimgeour nodded, apparently pleased with the response. " _Is_  Sirius Black innocent?"

"Yes. The Potters' real Secret Keeper was Peter Pettigrew. He memory-charmed my parents into believing it was Sirius. Pettigrew was a Death Eater. And still is."

The man paused as he absorbed that. "Your parents both submitted magical affidavits swearing that Sirius Black was the Secret Keeper. Such affidavits cannot be fooled by a Memory Charm."

"Well Pettigrew found a way!" Harry said angrily.

Scrimgeour shrugged at the exclamation. "Who else is in your conspiracy?"

Harry shook his head. "No. We've got oaths for that."

"Good," he said almost cheerfully. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd bothered to put  _anything_  under a secrecy oath. Are the Death Eaters who are  _not_  Sirius Black firmly secured?"

"Yes. They're not going anywhere until we're done with them."

"And then?" Scrimgeour asked.

Harry hesitated again, this time because he honestly didn't know the answer. "That … is not something I've been allowed to be a part of." He swallowed. "I  _assume_  they'll all be killed, and then their bodies delivered to the Ministry somehow."

"Except for Sirius Black's, of course."

"I … don't know. I mean, I know he won't be killed. But I hadn't really thought about how to handle him not being returned along with the others."

"Well, you're thirteen. I wouldn't expect you to have to think of everything." Scrimgeour paused. "Well, unless your co-conspirators were twelve and under, but that seems a bit precocious even for you."

He sat back and looked up at the ceiling while idly tapping his finger on his desk. "Has your conspiracy  _at least_  put some thought into resolving the fundamental problem with proving Sirius Black's innocence?"

Harry did a double-take. "Honestly, we've mainly been focused on finding and destroying Horcruxes. So, um, what  _is the_  fundamental problem that obviously I've never considered?"

Scrimgeour glowered at him. "Merely the fact that overturning his conviction necessarily means disqualifying the evidence that cleared a half-dozen people  _who currently sit on the Wizengamot_  of being Death Eaters, as well as dozens of family members of other seat holders. A sizeable percentage of our government is implicated if Black's confession is thrown out. And none of them are going to simply sit back and let that happen. Not when it would be so much easier for Sirius Black to simply  _disappear_  in the night before his claims of innocence can be addressed."

He shook his head. "I mean honestly, Potter! I'm assuming Lucius Malfoy is involved in this business somehow, and I  _know_  he's realized that clearing Black put his neck back on the block for being a willing Death Eater! Have you at least set aside a cache of blackmail evidence against him in preparation for that day he decides to murder you?"

"… um," said Harry slowly.

"Oh for Merlin's sake, Potter! I know you're young, but you shouldn't be  _that_  naïve at thirteen! When I was a Third Year, my blackmail folder filled two banker's boxes! And that was just fellow students!"

Both the Slytherins were silent for a moment. Harry actually had to stop himself from drinking another sip of the tainted pumpkin juice. Finally, Scrimgeour spoke again.

"Over the Christmas break, you will meet with your conspiracy and tell them what I have learned. Whoever you designate as spokesman for your group will contact me. We will meet at a mutually agreeable location and discuss … well, everything. If we can come to terms, then I will swear appropriate oaths to join with your conspiracy. If we cannot, then I will expose you all. Please advise your allies that,  _of course_ , I will keep certified memory copies of this conversation in safe locations and ensure that they will be delivered to the authorities if I am betrayed."

"You … want to join us?" Harry asked in amazement,

"I  _want_  to destroy You-Know-Who before he returns to full power," said Scrimgeour. Then, after a beat, he added: "I also want to be the Director of the DMLE. Do mention that to Lucius … or whoever is filling the "Lucius niche" in the unlikely event I've guessed wrong about his involvement."

He smiled almost warmly. "It's good to have multiple goals, especially when they are congruent."

A mostly one-sided conversation between Harry and Scrimgeour continued for another half-hour before the boy was sent on his way. He went straight to the Prince's Lair to ask the Hydra a question that was suddenly of burning importance.

" _How is it possible that Rufus Scrimgeour was never a Prince?!_" he nearly spluttered.

There was a brief susurration from all nine heads before Ka finally spoke.

"There was great interest in him from his earliest days at Hogwarts," said the mighty cobra. "But the Exemplars of Subtlety and Ambition exercised their vetoes. Delilah found him charmless and abrasive, which, to be fair, he was in his youth."

Delilah hissed disdainfully to Harry's surprise. It put lie to Lucius's earlier comment that the boomslang "liked everybody."

"And you, Rajah?" Harry asked respectfully.

"He lacked ambition," the silver basilisk said without elaboration.

"Lacked… ambition?! Until he was forced into retirement with a crippling injury, he was the third most powerful person in the British wizarding government."

"True," said Rajah, "but never by design or choice. Rufus Scrimgeour rose to such heights by dint of brilliant and overwhelming competence. He was continually promoted into higher-ranking positions he did not want simply because no one else was remotely as qualified. But if he'd had any choice in the matter, he would have never risen above the rank of low-level field investigator. Never has he had any ambition beyond solving crimes and other puzzles."

Harry considered that and asked a few more questions before returning to his room to pack for the next day's journey. It would be a long day. As the boy laid down to bed, he consoled himself with the hope that Regulus, Lucius, and Snape would have some sort of plan for dealing with Scrimgeour. He also took comfort in the fact that this wretched day was over. He truly felt as though he couldn't cope if something  _else_  went wrong.

 **** _19 December 1993_  
Longbottom Manor  
Bellatrix's Cell in the Dungeon  
7:30 a.m.

Early the next morning, the woman awoke in her cell, sat up, and looked around. She was not sure if she was Bellatrix Lestrange or Miss Demeanor at the moment. All she knew for sure was that she was an unarmed witch in a dank cell somewhere, gagged and straitjacketed. Her two selves had a brief nonverbal argument over the question who should be in charge before they agreed that Miss Demeanor had the requisite skills for their current situation and thus should take point. Bellatrix Lestrange would withdraw until they encountered someone whose brutal murder would not draw attention to their activities.

Miss Demeanor laid back on the floor and then kicked up with her legs, gracefully jumping up from the ground to land on her feet. Then, she spent several minutes carefully studying her surroundings. She may have been bound, gagged, and locked away in some dungeon cell, but the fools had not bothered to restrict her movements. More fool them.

Her study of the cell complete, Miss Demeanor moved very close to one of the walls, close enough to rest her left shoulder against it. Then, she bit down hard on the gag, pulled her shoulder back, and  _slammed_  it into the wall hard enough to produce an audible pop as her shoulder dislocated. After taking a second to catch her breath, she did the same thing for her right shoulder. She never once screamed though the pain was intense. Phase one of her escape completed, she set to work on wriggling free of the straitjacket.

And while Miss Demeanor worked in total silence, Bellatrix Lestrange laughed and giggled and sang terrifying nursery rhymes as she patiently waited her turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: Thanks to the following eagle-eyed Discord members for help in editing this chapter: darkphoenix31, FeatheryMinx, Emily, LordBritish, Scrubbius, patronus, Wonder Momoko, MihelRika, nispeed, VSPV, Kardenal13, RB13, TrendyTreky, feauxen, and of course, the implacable Ozzie.  
> AN 2: VERY Tentative release schedule.  
> 2/11/19 – The next (and possibly penultimate) chapter of Strangers In Boston, available on my website to my patrons.  
> 2/18/19 – Chapter 112 of POS available early on my website to Discord followers.  
> 2/21/19 – Chapter 112 of POS posted here and on AO3.  
> NOTE HOWEVER that Ch 112 will be one of those annoying chapters to write because things are happening in different locations simultaneously, so it's entirely possible I'll blow through these dates.  
> AN 3: Huzzahs! The Sinister Man's Discord server has broken 1100 members! If you want to see future chapters a few days early and also discuss POS or Harry Potter in general with like-minded fans, check it out. Also, we are closing in on the elusive 10,000 Favs on . We currently stand at 9898.  
> AN 4: As noted above, the Sinister Man's first original novel, Strangers In Boston, is nearly complete. During the month of March, I'll hopefully complete the process of getting it published on Amazon for Kindle users. More info to come soon.

**Author's Note:**

> AN 1: The first several chapters will deal only peripherally with Harry, but they will establish aspects of the Wizarding World through the eyes of his friends which will definitely affect him later. That said, I actually had to significantly rework my outline for DEM because it was looking less like a Harry Potter story and more like a "Marauders reminisce about the old days for six chapters" story. I have come up with a framing device that will hopefully allow Harry to experience and possibly even interact with those memories of yesteryear. We'll see how it goes.
> 
> AN 2: Also, against my better judgment, DEM will include time travel shenanigans. It won't be the same kind of time travel shenanigans we saw in Prisoner of Azkaban, but it will be there and I'm nervous as hell about it. Wish me luck.
> 
> If you find yourself enjoying this story - and why wouldn't you - you can join other likeminded people on The Prince of Slytherin [Discord Server](https://discord.gg/9gSaEyQ) There are perks to joining, such as a place I often frequent, and early access to the latest upcoming chapters.


End file.
